95 



its produce, for all experience has demonstrated that it is as good as the 

 best. From such a lot alfalfa may be cut green and fed every night and 

 morning. Care must be taken, however, not to feed too much, or to feed 

 it to cattle when it is wet, as it is liable to produce bloat or hoven. Sheep 

 are also liable to be affected in the same way, but horses and hogs are not. 



Prof. Smith warns the orchardists against planting it in an orchard. 

 The roots descend so much deeper than the roots of the fruit trees that 

 the latter are often killed. It is a good forerunner for an orchard because 

 the roots penetrate the subsoil deeply and in their decay furnish an ex- 

 cellent fertilizer for fruit trees, inasmuch as the alfalfa roots have the 

 power to collect nitrogen from the air just as other leguminous plants, 

 and the field is greatly enriched. 



In an analysis of the soils upon which alfalfa is grown it is found that 

 they differ widely in their chemical composition. However, the carbonate 

 of potassium and the carbonate of lime are usually the most abundant in- 

 gredients, followed by the phosphate of lime. In clayey and chalky soils 

 the carbonate of lime reaches nearly 50 per cent. Alfalfa will produce 

 the largest quantity of forage for domestic animals and will, at the same 

 time, enrich the lands upon which it is grown. 



COW PEAS (Vigna catiang,} -(Pasture, Ensilage and Dry Forage.) 



No agricultural product of the South has come so rapidly into well 

 merited and almost universal favor within the past twenty years as cow 

 peas. Though they were introduced into South Carolina over 150 years 

 ago it is but within recent years that they have been grown in all the 

 Southern States. They are now a staple cro-p in the border states and are 

 grown in every portion of them. Twenty years ago their cultivation was 

 confined mainly to the cotton growing districts, but at present they have 

 taken to a large extent the place of clover, and especially where the lands 

 have become "clover sick," or the clover crop uncertain. Cowpeas, in fact, 

 richly deserve to be called the "clover of the South." It is a leguminous 

 plant and appropriates nitrogen from the atmosphere as all other plants 

 of the same family do. They supply as much humus to the soil as clover, 

 and may be successfully grown upon soils that are so sterile clover would 

 wither and die on them. 



There are many varieties or subvarieties of the cowpea. These 

 varieties often take local names derived from the persons who introduced 

 them. The best established varieties for the Southern States are the 

 eureka No. 1, the unknown, clay and black; in the Central and Northern 

 section the eureka No. 2, black, black eye, whippoorwill and Carolina. 

 Some of these are bunch varieties and some trailing or climbing. 



SOILS FOR COWPEAS One of the greatest advantages which 

 the cowpea possesses over every other forage or fertilizing crop grown is 

 its adaptability to every soil. The writer has seen it growing with strong 

 foliage upon a dozen different soils in the State of Tennessee. Some 

 varieties seem to prefer one soil, and some another, but all varieties will 

 make a satisfactory growth upon any soil. But the cowpea is especially 

 valuable for dry sandy soils, inasmuch as clover rarely does well upon 

 such soils. 



