86 SHEEP FEEDING 



every state, as well as the Department of Agriculture, has 

 publications on the subject. These suggestions are made 

 on the supposition that the reader has a general under- 

 standing of the habits and needs of the plant, and wishes 

 to know how it may be utilized as a forage crop. 



Legumes. Cowpeas are an excellent crop for a sheep or 

 hog pasture. They are a legume rich in protein, furnish- 

 ing both grain and forage. They mature in from sixty to 

 a hundred and twenty days, and can thus follow an early- 

 maturing grain in many sections of the country. There is 

 no crop that will show as marked beneficial results to the 

 soil in so short a time as cowpeas, especially when turned 

 under or pastured down. The growing of cowpeas on a com- 

 pact, heavy soil generally improves the physical condition 

 most remarkably, making it light, friable, and easily worked. 



Ways of planting cowpeas. There are a number of ways 

 in which cowpeas may be planted, but from all standpoints 

 except labor the following methods should be followed. 

 As soon as the ground becomes warm in the spring and 

 the weather is well settled, from the middle to the latter 

 part of May in the latitude of central Missouri, drill on a 

 well-prepared seed bed from twenty to sixty pounds of seed 

 per acre. If a grain drill is used, from forty -five to sixty 

 pounds will be needed, which will plant them so close that 

 they cannot be cultivated, and not very many pods will form. 

 Where a fairly good proportion of seed and forage is de- 

 sired, either drill with a corn planter, in rows of regulation 

 width, about twenty pounds per acre, or double-row with a 

 planter from thirty to forty-five pounds of seed per acre. 

 In either case it will be necessary to cultivate them, but 

 ordinarily they do not need attention until most of the 

 corn cultivating is over. 



