PEAS. 



PEAS, 



The pea will succeed pretty well on both 

 heavy and light soils ; but it certainly does best 

 on the latter, especially if the land abounds 

 with carbonate of lime. It is an excellent crop 

 to interpose between corn crops, for it affords 

 considerable facilities to the cleansing of the 

 land, and is not otherwise an exhausting crop. 

 In many parts of England a pea crop is dibbled 

 on the clover and grass leys, and afterwards a 

 corn crop is taken with great advantage. In 

 others a crop of oats is taken, and then a crop 

 of peas. When this latter mode is adopted, the 

 land is commonly ploughed in the autumn, 

 and by cross-ploughing and harrowing in the 

 spring, brought into some degree of tilth, and 

 then the seed may be sown with the ordinary 

 drill. The quantity of seed employed is about 

 3 bushels per acre, and the rows are usually 

 from 9 to 27 inches apart. There is every 

 facility aforded for the use of the horse-hoe. 

 This instrument, with the early and occasional 

 use of the hand-hoe r will cleanse the land; to 

 which end the crop of peas will, as they approach 

 maturity, materially assist, by overpowering 

 and stifling the weeds. 



Peas are usually one of the most uncertain 

 of the English farmer's crops. They are sub- 

 ject to many casualties to blight or mildew; 

 to the attacks of a variety of insects, such as 

 the grub, which devours the roots; lice, aphides, 

 &c., which haunt the leaves; and a small bee- 

 tle, the Brucfnis granarius, lays its eggs in the 

 green pods, which produce a grub that devours 

 its seeds. Then, again, it is frequently injured 

 by the weather, in very dry, or in continued 

 wet, or late harvests ; and hence in the east 

 of England it is often designated by the far- 

 mers as " a gentleman farmer's crop." This 

 crop, however, is too often mismanaged in the 

 way to which Arthur Young so well alluded, 

 when he told the careless farmers of his day 

 that they were "too apt to sow this pulse when 

 the land would yield nothing else. They have 

 a proverb among them," he adds, "which sig- 

 nifies that the season does as much for peas as 

 good husbandry; and they from thence take 

 care that good crops shall be owing to season 

 alone. Hence arises the general idea of peas 

 being the most uncertain crop of all others. 

 This is owing to their being scarcely ever 

 sown on land that is in good order. Let," he 

 continues, " the good husbandman lay it down 

 as a maxim, that he should sow no crop on 

 land that is not in good order ; not merely in 

 respect of fine tilth at the time of sowing, but 

 also of the soil being in good heart, and clear 

 of weeds. He would not, however, here be 

 understood to rank all these crops together ; 

 because beans and peas will admit of cleaning 

 while they grow. On that account, if a farmer 

 comes to a field which his predecessor has 

 filled with weeds, a horse-hoed crop of beans 

 will be expedient, when a barley crop would 

 be utterly improper; and, after land has yield- 

 ed one crop of barley, certainly another should 

 not be sown, but one of pulse substituted. If 

 these ideas are well executed, the peas and 

 beans, in every course, will find the land in 

 heart enough for barley, the soil will always 

 be clean, and the crop good. Peas, when ma- 

 naged in a spirited manner, will not have the 



reputation of being so very uncertain a crop, 

 which character has, he thinks, in some mea- 

 sure been owing to ill conduct." 



Peas do not need any particular dressings 

 with manure ; in fact, few crops require it so 

 little; and in many situations manure produces 

 the ill effect of rendering the plaint too luxu- 

 riant. Von Thaer found, by several experi- 

 ments, that the dung applied to the pea crop is 

 the most profitable when used as a top-dress- 

 ing. And, moreover, he contends that on sandy 

 loams it produces in this way a much better 

 effect in the succeeding crop. Lime and soot 

 are, perhaps, the best dressings for peas ; and 

 these may operate to some degree by killing 

 the insects of the soil, which might otherwise 

 prey upon them; besides, the pea plant seems 

 to delight in every situation where it can have 

 access to calcareous matter. The crop is com- 

 monly cut with a hook at the end of a staff, or 

 the half of an old scythe set in a handle. By 

 these the peas are severed, and made up into 

 small bundles, called wads or wisps, and these 

 remain on the ground until they are sufficiently 

 dry to be carried. The straw of peas is very 

 useful for the stock of the farm-yard: cows 

 eat it, when it has been well gathered, with 

 considerable avidity. See HAULM. 



1000 parts of peas grown in Norfolk afforded 

 Davy 501 parts of starch, 22 of saccharine 

 matter, 35 of albuminous matter, and 16 parts 

 of extract. The ashes obtained by burning the 

 pea plant in flower and when ripe were exa- 

 mined by M. Saussure : he found in 100 parts 

 of these ashes, procured from the Pisum sati- 

 vum in flower, of soluble salts 49-8 parts, of 

 earthy phosphates 17-25, earthy carbonates 6, 

 silica 2-3, metallic oxides 1, and loss 24-65 parts. 

 And from the ashes of the ripe plant, soluble 

 salts 34-25 parts, earthy phosphates 22, earthy 

 carbonates 14, silica 11, metallic oxides 2-5, 

 and loss 17-25 parts. 



The average price of peas in England, per 

 Winchester quarter, was in 



t. d. 8. d. 



1793 - 1 12 8 1805 .384 



1795 - 1 18 4 1810 - 2 15 9 



l&OO - 375 1815 - 1 18 10 



Per Imperial Quarter. 



. d. g. d. 



1820 - 2 5 11 1835 - 1 16 G 



1825 3 5 5 1840 



1830 - 1 19 2 



The amount of the imperial quarters of peas 

 and beans entered for home consumption in 

 England every five years, from 1815 to 1835, 

 was, according to Mr. M'Culloch : 



1815 



1820 

 1825 



Qn. 

 523 



- 761,125 



- 30,767 



1830 

 1835 



Qn. 



- 63,664 



- 94,540 



The annual average of peas and beans, im- 

 ported into England from 1801 to 1825, in Win- 

 chester quarters, was, from. 



Russia ... 

 Sweden and Norway 

 Denmark - 

 Prussia - 

 Germany - 



Q*. 

 785 

 428 

 823 

 7,609 

 7,144 



Netherlands 5,802 



France and South of Europe - - 9,124 



America - 898 



Ireland 4.92Q 



Other countries ... - 151 

 875 



