438 LEGUMINOUS PLANTS. 



a bean than a pea, and is supposed to be a species of doliehos 

 belonging to the pulse family whose species is undetermin- 

 ed. Be this as it may, its value as a farm crop has long been 

 known. The ease with which it is cultivated and its great 

 value as a forage plant and as a fertilizer have given it a 

 prominent place in southern agriculture. It belongs to the 

 leguminous or pulse family, and is known as a pea, and for 

 that reason it will be treated of under that head. 



The letter below, from the Hon. H. M. Polk, of Harde- 

 man county, is so thorough and exhaustive that nothing 

 more need be said on the subject, only remarking that no 

 soil in this State is so poor that it will not grow peas. 



Bolivae, Hardeman County, Tenn., July 2, 1878. 

 Commissioner J. B. Killebrew: 



I will not stop to demonstate what is manifest, to all that the South, 

 from her sparse population, her wide-spread plantations, her adaptation 

 to, and her predilection for the cultivation of certain of our great 

 Southern staples, is not at this time and may never be in a condition to 

 keep up her arable lands by animal manures alone, and that her only 

 alternative is in green crops turned under for renovating and increasing 

 the productive capacity of her soil. 



In estimating the relative manurial values of green crops to bring up 

 the productive capacity of our soils, we measure by the amount of crop 

 produced in the shortest time, the elements upon which these crops feed, 

 their capacity for returning plant food to the earth, and especially by 

 their leaving more or less of those elements in the soil which are ne- 

 cessary to the production of the succeeding crop Nor do we omit to 

 estimate their several capacities for sending their roots deeply into the 

 soil, thereby bringing up and depositing near the surface the aliment for 

 plants which would otherwise remain below the reach of the roots of 

 many of our most valuable cereals. For the accomplishment of these 

 purposes no vegetable equals the southern field pea and red clover. In 

 them we find the answer to that momentous' question, how, and through 

 what means can we, in the shortest space of time, bring our lands up to 

 their highest productive capacities to meet our own and the varied wants 

 of society. When we reflect that all progress, civilization, refinement, 

 culture, prosperity and happiness of society hang suspended upon the 

 scale which measures out the feeding capacity of the earth, we begin to 

 appreciate those vegetable productions promotive of this desired end. 

 The trefoils and legumes then begin to loom up in their grand possibili- 

 ties; and the clover and the field pea assume an importance not dream- 



