46 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



Pea Fed Lambs and Hogs Profitable Industry In San 



Luis Valley, Colorado. 



W. A. ANDERSON. 



The "re-discovery" of the San Luis valley in an 

 agricultural way is directly attributable to the field-pea. 

 The discovery of the value of the field pea as a stock 

 food was rather an accident than an experiment and 

 can be credited to Mr. James A. Kelly, one of the 

 pioneer agriculturists of the valley, and Mr. F. Syl- 

 vester. 



It is not a new crop, having been raised rather 

 extensively in parts of Europe and is today cultivated 

 in the northern portion of the United States and in 

 Canada. It is rich in humus and nitrogen and these 

 ingredients have worked against its successful culture 

 in more humid and warmer portions of the country. 

 If damp the vines decay easily and in warmer climes 

 are subject to many mold diseases. The vines being 

 long' and of tough fibre are rather difficult to harvest 

 and it does not pay to stack it for purposes of feed 

 where other hay can be so much more easily obtained. 

 All three of these objections are overcome in the Sau 

 Luis valley. The weather is cool because of the altitude 

 and being an arid country the defects from dampness 

 do not bother. And the method of feeding turning 

 sheep and hogs into ripened, unharvested fields does 

 away with the labor of harvesting. 



But I began to tell of the original application of 

 the field pea. A few years ago it was discovered that 

 the constant raising of grain year in and year out was 

 diminishing the fertility of the soil and the farmers 

 cast about for some crop which would replenish the 

 nitrogen and humus taken from the ground by the 

 grain. It was necessary that the crop be leguminous or 

 nitrogen gathering. Field peas were found to best sup- 

 ply the deficiencies and a year or two demonstrated that 

 they not only restored the productiveness of the soil 

 but increased it. The problem of how to dispose of the 

 new crop then arose, as there was no market for it, even 

 though it made as fine a hay as alfalfa when it was cut 

 in the blossom, or even when it was allowed to mature. 

 This was because of the difficulty of harvesting it. 

 About eleven years ago Messrs Kelly and Sylvester 

 attempted to solve the market problem by feeding the 

 pea hay to lambs in corrals, using wheat, oats or barley 

 as a grain feed. As far as fattening lambs was con- 

 cerned the experiment was a success, but notwithstand- 

 ing the increase of the fertility of the soil the direct 

 financial returns were not great because of the high 

 cost of the grain feed. Then by accident really Mr. 

 Sylvester discovered that lambs he had turned into an 

 unharvested pea field after the grain had matured gave 

 better returns than those he wag feeding in the corrals, 

 the matured crop supplying both the grain and the hay. 

 Further experinent along the same line confirmed 

 the success of it until today, seven years after the 

 discovery of the fattening qualities of the field pea, the 

 lamb industry has become the largest and one of the 

 most profitable in the valley. All at once, apparently, 

 were found the conditions for successful rotation of 

 crops, the problem of disposing of the crop used in the 

 rotation, an,d the successful elements-of a new industry. 



Following close upon the feeding of pea grain and 

 hay to lambs came the hog industry. It was discovered 

 that the field pea made an excellent fattener for hogs 

 as well as for lambs, and it was not more than three or 

 four years ago that the feeding of hogs became general. 

 Hogs bring better prices than do lambs and are more 

 easily cared for, but there are not so many of them 

 raised because of the inability to obtain them as easily. 

 Either the farmer must breed them himself or else have 

 them shipped in from some distant point. The question 

 of summer feeding is the one that now stands in the 

 way of the rapid development of the industry, and it is 

 the general belief that before many years this will be 

 successfully solved. When it is and the farmer of the 

 San Luis valley has facilities for the cheap breeding of 

 hogs the industry will doubtless surpass in quantity 

 the feeding of lambs. Hogs have the advantage over 

 sheep in many ways: they do not require so much at- 

 tention; they clean up the ground better, often being 



A Field of Peas in Bloom. 



turned into a pea field after the sheep have gotten all 

 they can from it; and fatten more readily, for the 

 reason that they are content to lie down after feeding 

 and do not run about as do sheep, thereby saving some 

 loss from shrinkage. Therefore, because of the differ- 

 ence in the dispositions of the animals, the pork value 

 of an acre of field peas is about 75 per cent greater than 

 the lamb value. And it is the hog that is giving the 

 valley most of the publicity it is receiving throughout 

 the country. Pea-fed bacon has become so prominent 

 that just recently one of the largest packing firms in 

 the world sent representatives through the valley to 

 estimate the paying probabilities of a brand of pea-fed 

 bacon and hams. About the only difficulty in the way 

 was the fact that the company must necessarily have the 

 supply of 100,000 hogs distributed over a period of 

 nine months, while at the present time it does not 



