PEA 



PEA 



513 



moisture. The pea crop is made by the middle 

 of July and does not draw on the moisture supply 

 in the orchard after that date, when the moisture is 

 needed by the apple trees. [See page 506, Vol. I.] 



Seed-peas. — When produced for the supply of the 

 seed trade, peas are usually grown on contract, the 

 jobber supplying the planting stock and agreeing 

 to buy the crop at a specified price. The peas are 

 received at the seed houses and pre- 

 pared for market by recleaning and 

 hand-picking in the same way that 

 beans are prepared. 



Split peas. — About half a million 

 bushels of smooth or Canada iield-peas 

 are annually required for the produc- 

 tion of "split peas," which are used 

 principally in making soups. The 

 hulls, which are removed in the pro- 

 cess of manufacture, and the refuse 

 peas <ire ground together to make 

 "pea meal," which is sold as a stock- 

 food. 



Canning. — ^The canning factories 

 use the garden pea grown as a field 

 crop, not the type known as field-pea. 

 [The subject of canning is discussed 

 in Part II of this volume.] The pods 

 and vines from canning factories are often ensiled, 

 or fed green. 



Enemies. 



ive as a remedy so far as the seed is concerned, 

 but the few beetles which emerge in autumn and 

 hibernate in barns or fields prevent a complete 

 riddance of the pest. In treating the seed it is 

 usually placed in tight vessels or rooms and ex- 

 posed for two or three days to the fumes of bisulfid 

 of carbon. One pound of bisulfid is sufiicient for 

 about one hundred bushels of peas. 



-The pea crop, as njost others, encoun- 

 ters a number of rather serious obstructions to 

 growth. As a rule, it is not seriously interfered 

 with by weeds, as it starts quickly and makes rapid 

 progress, thus smothering out most weed competi- 

 tion. If, however, the land is infested with the 

 annual wild mustard (Brassiea Sinapistrum), the 

 crop may be seriously injured. Fortunately this 

 weed may be destroyed when a few inches high by 

 spraying with a solution of about twelve pounds of 

 copper sulfate in fifty gallons of water, while the 

 peas are not materially injured by the solution. 

 This treatment is most effective if the spraying is 

 performed on a bright, hot day. Young mustard 

 plants are much more easily destroyed than those 

 approaching bloom. An ordinary four- or six-row 

 potato sprayer answers well for the work. The 

 metal parts of the sprayer should be brass, as iron 

 is actively attacked by the solution. (Page 118.) 



Insects. — There are three insect enemies of the 

 pea crop, each of which is Tery destructive at 

 times : the pea weevil or "pea bug" (Bruehus fis- 

 orum) ; the pea moth (Semasia nitrieana) ; and the 

 pea louse or aphis {Neetarophora destructor). 



The weevil is a brownish gray, active beetle, 

 one-fifth of an inch long, which emerges from peas 

 in autumn or in spring, leaving a small round hole. 

 The egg is laid on the outside of the young pods 

 and the grub, on hatching, eats its way into the 

 pea. Here it undergoes its transformation, usu- 

 ally not emerging till the peas are sown the follow- 

 ing spring. The affected peas are much injured 

 for seed and somewhat for stock-food. Fumigation 

 of the seed stock with bisulfid of carbon is effect- 



£33 



Brush-and-pan method of fighting pea-louse. (Div. Entomology, 

 United States Department Agriculture.) 



The pea moth, in the perfect form, is a small, 

 slaty gray moth, three-eighths of an inch long. 

 The moths, however, are seldom seen, the insect be- 

 ing observed by pea-growers when in the cater- 

 pillar state, and is usually called the "worm." 

 They are small, whitish, slightly hairy caterpillars, 

 when full-grown about half an inch in length, 

 which live inside the green pods, attacking the 

 peas by gnawing ragged-edged cavities into them 

 and filling the cavities about them with excrement. 

 This insect is very destructive in eastern Canada 

 and in recent years has become abundant in Jeffer- 

 son county. New York. The injuries are most 

 severe to late peas. Suggested remedies afford 

 little relief except that by planting early and using 

 early varieties the attack is usually escaped. 



The pea aphis is a pale green plant-louse which 

 clusters in enormous numbers at the tips of the 

 shoots and sometimes over the whole plants of 

 field-peas ; and it sometimes is found on sweet-peas 

 and clover. These insects appear suddenly in large 

 numbers and sometimes cause great loss over large 

 areas of country. This species is very active and 

 springs from the plant on the slightest touch. This 

 trait has been used for their destruction by plant- 

 ing the seed in drills and using the cultivator to 

 bury the aphid? after they have been brushed from 

 the vines. 



Literature. 



The first two references following have to do 

 with the culture of peas, and the last two with pea 

 enemies: Farmers' Bulletin No. 224, United States 

 Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C; 

 Soiling Crops and the Silo, Shaw, pp. 102-110 ; 

 Yearbook, United States Department of Agriculture, 

 1898, p. 223 ; Delaware Experiment Station, Bul- 

 letin No. 49. [See, also, the gardening books.] 



