PASTORAL AND AGRICULTURAL BOTANY 



seeds, which should be used at the rate of 1.5 to 3.5 bushels per acre. 



Harvesting is difficult, because of the prostrate habit of the plants. They 



may be cut with the ordinary 

 mowing machine and raked 

 into piles with a sulky rake. 

 It is customary to harvest 

 when two-thirds of the pods 

 are yellow. When dried, the 

 hay should be stacked under 

 cover, or threshed at once with 

 a pea huller. 



Utility. Peas furnish a 

 good food for milk cows, swine, 

 sheep, horses and cattle. Peas 

 grown with some other kinds of 

 grain are of great value as a 

 soiling crop. Peas can be used 

 as nitrogen gatherers, and 

 therefore, for green manure. 

 Field peas are treated as a hay 

 crop, for the making of silage 

 and is a cover crop. The 

 Ontario Station after testing 

 for six years found a yield of 

 28.1 bushels per acre from 

 large seed and 23 bushels from 

 small seed. 



Cowpea (Vigna sinensis). 

 This plant is related to the 

 asparagus bean (Vigna sesqui- 



FIG. 86. Cowpea (Vigna sinensis) with pods pedalis) and to the catjang 



and leaves. (After Mairs, T. J.: Some Soiling /Tr . . N , ,., 



Crops for Pennyslvania, Bull. 109, Pennsylvania (Vigna catjang). The dlf- 



State College Agricultural Experiment Station, ferences botanically by which 



1911, p. 7. Oirginally on p. IT, U. S. Farmers' ., . ,. ,. . i j 



Bulletin 27 8, 1907.) these s P ecies are distinguished 



are comparatively slight, and 



the species are connected through intermediate varieties. The cow- 

 pea (Vigna sinensis) is an annual, prostrate, trailing to half-bushy 

 plant having compound trifoliate leaves with broadly ovate leaflets. 



