18 BULLETIN 11&, U. S. DEPAETMENT OF AGKICULTUEE. 



DESCRIPTION. 



The mung is an erect or suberect, rather hairy, much-branched 

 plant, growing to a height of 1 to 4 feet, depending on variety. Some 

 sorts twine more or less at the tips of the stems and branches. In a 

 general way the plants are intermediate in habit between the cowpea 

 and the soy bean. The leaves are trifoliate, with rather large, ovate, 

 entire or rarely trilobed leaflets. The flowers are pale yellow, crowded 

 in clusters of 10 to 25. They are fully self -fertile, when bagged setting 

 pods perfectly. 



The adaptations of the plant are almost identical with those of the 

 cowpea, and the methods of culture quite the same. 



VARIETIES. 



The varieties of the mung are numerous, about 20 having been 

 introduced and tested during the past 10 years. They differ in habit, 

 size, period of maturity, color of pods, and size and color of seeds. 

 In habit most varieties are erect or suberect, but in some the tips 

 of the branches are vining. Most kinds grow to a height of about 2 

 feet, but early sorts are only 1 foot high and very late kinds 3 to 5 

 feet. The earliest mature their first crop of pods at Arlington farm 

 in about 80 days, while the latest barely ripen seed when killed by 

 frost in 140 days. The pods are black or brownish and vary in length 

 from 2.5 to 4 inches, each containing 10 to 14 seeds. The seeds are 

 globose or oblong, green in most varieties, but in others marbled 

 black and green, yellow, brown, and purple-brown. The weight of 

 100 seeds ranges from 1.5 to 4.2 grams. The seed coat is marked by 

 innumerable fine wavy ridges, which are sometimes very faint, but 

 apparently never entirely lacking. Sometimes nearly smooth seeds 

 are found in the same pod with others strongly striate. The seeds of 

 Phaseolus sublobatus are similarly striate, but those of the urd are 

 smooth. 



EARLY INTRODUCTION. 



The mung bean was known in the United States previous to 1835, 

 in which year the following article was published (Herbemont, 1835): 



Chickasaw Pea — Pea Fodder. 



Columbia, S. C, May 11, 18S5. 

 To the Editor of the Farmers' Register: 



I send you here enclosed a few of the peas mentioned in your last number [page 752, 

 Vol. II], as a dark bottle green pea, the smallest of the tribe. I prefer it to all others 

 for fodder. Not being a running vine, but rather a bush, it is much more manageable 

 than the common cow pea. My horses prefer it to all other fodder, and when they 

 have it, never leave a bit, eating it all to the oldest and dryest stalk. The best prac- 

 tice in curing pea vines here, is not to let them remain as long in the sun as your cor- 

 respondent J. M. G. intimates is necessary; but they are cut one day and housed the 

 next, taking care not to let them be packed too close, but kept open by poles or rails 

 being put here and there between them, and kept so for three or four weeks, when the 



