272 CULTURE OF FARM CROPS. 



round in form, of a yellow -"brown colour, and having eyes 

 light-coloured. 



67. The soil best adapted for the pea is a warm, well- 

 drained, loamy, or marly soil. Like the bean, it is a lime 

 plant, and soils of a calcareous nature are most "beneficial 

 for it. But although the soil is required to be free and 

 well-drained, it must still possess a certain degree of co- 

 hesion and of moisture. Rich in inanurial ingredients it 

 must also be, if productive crops are desiderated. Its 

 roots do not take such a hold of the soil as those of* the 

 bean, hence it may be cultivated in shallower land than 

 the latter crop. From what has been said above, it will 

 be seen that heavy clay soils are not calculated for pease. 

 But when such soils are in good tilth, and in districts gen- 

 erally warm and dry, pease may be, as they often are, culti- 

 vated along with beans ; and clinging as they do to the 

 strong stalks of the beans, the pease yield good crops, and 

 the united produce is more valuable, it is said, than where 

 beans alone are grown. The attacks of the plant-lice, or 

 aphides, are also said to be less severe than where the 

 crops are taken off singly. 



68. Pease do not form what is called a rotation crop, 

 being generally taken off stubble or grass layers. On 

 light soils, by taking pease in place of beans, the clover 

 may come into the rotation every eighth in place of every 

 fourth year, and thus reduce the chances of its being at- 

 tacked with the " clover sickness," if, indeed, which has 

 been questioned, a frequent recurrence of the clover in the 

 same soil is the cause of its failure. On stronger, heavier 

 lands, the pea crop should be placed between two cereal 

 crops, and, according to a high authority, treated as a fallow 

 crop. But great difficulties lie in the way of so treating 

 pease, from their habit of growth. With their long tendrils 

 trailing on the ground, it is sometimes scarcely possible 

 at even the early stages of their growth, quite impossible 

 at their later, to hoe and stir the soil between the rows. 

 But on this point will be found remarks bearing on it at 

 another part of this Chapter; meanwhile we proceed to 



