V. PEA. 



such is the effect of habit and tradition, that, even when 

 I was last in America (1819), people talked just as 

 familiarly as in England about having green peas on the 

 King's birth-day f and were just as ambitious for accom- 

 plishing the object j and I remember a gentleman who had 

 been a republican officer during the Revolutionary War, 

 who told me that he always got in his garden green-peas 

 fit to eat on old Uncle George's birth-day. This, however, is 

 the general season for the coming in of green-peas in 

 England j but, to have them at this season, the very 

 earliest sort must be sowed j they must be sowed, too, 

 in November, or as soon after as the weather will per- 

 mit, and they must be sowed on the South-side of a wall, 

 or of a very close and warm hedge, the ground not being 

 wet in its nature by any means. The frosts will be very 

 apt to cut them off, and, if the weather be mild, they 

 will be apt to get so forward as to be cut off in January 

 or February. They should, therefore, be kept earthed 

 up a little on both sides ; and, if hard frosts approach, they 

 should be covered with peas-haulm or straw, and these 

 should be taken off as soon as the thaw has completely taken 

 place. It will not do to place the row of peas nearer than 

 about four feet distance from the wall, because, they grow 

 high, and they would interfere with, and do injury to, 

 the fruit trees. Three or four rows of the very earliest 

 peas might be in the border e, on the south side of the 

 wall. Some more rows might be in the outer garder c, 

 on the south side of the wall there. The whole of these 

 borders need not be devoted to this purpose, but only 

 such part of them as would be deemed requisite. A 

 second sowing should take place a month or six weeks 

 after the first j but this may take place across the plat 



