96 



The peas may be sown at any time from the first of May until the last 

 of July. It takes from sixty to eighty days for them to mature. The soil 

 may be prepared by breaking it with a two horse plow. The peas should 

 then be sown at the rate of one bushel and a half per acre and the ground 

 afterwards well harrowed. Some farmers prefer to drill the peas in rows 

 two and a half to three feet apart, the neas being at intervals of one or 

 two inches in the row. After they have come up a cultivator should be 

 run between the rows. Peas furnish a large amount of feed when planted 

 between the corn rows at the last plowing of the corn. The bush varieties 

 ripen soonest but the California cowpea, the clay, pea and the black pea 

 are more profitable as they do not rot so readily in wet weather and will 

 remain sound and keep a large number of stock the best part of the winter 

 after the corn has been gathered. The whippoorwill pea planted by itself 

 will give the earliest returns. 



Stubble ground after oats or wheat is turned to good account by 

 breaking and sowing it with peas. The pasture comes on at a time when 

 it is most needed. In the southern part of Tennessee and in Northern 

 Alabama a crop of peas grown on stubble land goes a long ways towards 

 fattening hogs for slaughter. 



COWPEAS FOR HAY It is generally conceded that when prop- 

 erly harvested and cured cowpea hay is the equal of red clover hay in 

 every particular and indeed much richer in protein. The only exception 

 to this general admission as to the value of cowpea hay comes from the 

 Kansas Experiment Station, where it is reported that stock would not 

 eat the vines green, cured or in ensilage. 



Recent experiments at this Experiment Station go to show that in two 

 tons of timothy hay and in three tons of cowpea hay, each the product of 

 one acre, the following results were obtained: 



FERTILIZING MATERIALS. 



FOOD MATERIALS. 



"We see, thus, that legumes furnish three to four times as much pro- 

 tein and more carbohydrates and fats than common hay. They contain 

 over twice as much nitrogen and twice as much potash. This nitro-r 

 gen is derived from the air, and removing it does not deplete the soil. 

 The best plan is, thus, to feed leguminous plants and return to the soil the 

 manure, which will still contain four-fifths of all the fertilizing elements. 

 As nitrogen of the air is the cheapest source of nitrogen for plants, so it 



