DESCRIPTIONS OF VARIETIES 



35 



but containing, when ready to pick, 5 to 7 or more 

 large, oval, light green to good green peas, much better 

 in quality than the smaller peas of the Extra Early 

 group. The seeds are usually half larger to nearly 

 twice as large as those of the Extra Earlies, more nearly 

 round than are the green peas, usually with very smooth 

 skins, tho often more or less angular or irregular in shape, 

 and occasionally dented. 



Included in the group of Marrowfats, also, are black- 

 eyed types, with seeds generally smaller than those of 

 the white group, each seed showing a distinct, small, 

 black, or very dark brown, spot around the hilum or 

 eye. The black-eyed peas and the small-seeded and 

 more or less dwarf types of the white-seeded Marrow- 

 fats are more generally used for field culture than for 

 the garden or market. 



History. — The history of the varieties of this 

 group involves so many complexities that no really 

 satisfactory summation of it can be made. 



First, the earliest English classifiers of peas of whom 

 we know, Gerarde {Herbal 1597) whose separation is 

 very general, and Parkinson, give so little detail for 

 groups that their characters and their relationship to 

 each other are very uncertain ; and the varieties included 

 in each are not specified. Their " Rounceval pease " 

 and " White Rouncivals " might be considered the 

 ancestor of the Marrowfats; but Mawe-Abercrombie, 

 writing a century and a half after Parkinson, includes 

 in one rather indefinite group, two types of Marrowfats, 

 Tall and Dwarf, and the white Rouncival, as currently 

 cultivated, thus indicating that at that time the Mar- 

 rowfats and Rouncivals were considered distinct. Others 

 believe the Rouncivals to have been wrinkled peas. 

 Parkinson's Hasting pea is excluded from consideration, 

 by its lack of hardiness, as ancestor of either the Extra 

 Earlies or the Marrowfats, since both stand cold well; 

 and by its earliness, also, as progenitor of the Marrow- 

 fats, in particular, since these are midseason peas, or 

 later. 



The Egg pea, though corresponding in many respects 

 to the Marrowfats, was not listed by Parkinson, and was 

 in any case a black-eyed variety, and so hardly in 

 ancestral line with the white-seeded type; and the seeds 

 differ greatly both in size and shape from those of Black- 

 eyed Marrowfats. 



Later, the history of the Marrowfats is still further 

 complicated by the English use, beginning at an unknown 

 date or period, of this term to cover the tall, wrinkled, 

 rich-flavored white and green peas of which the Knight 

 Marrows are typical examples. This double use of the 

 term in English pea history, without definite indication 

 of the time of change, makes it impossible to say whether 

 many varieties called Marrow or Marrowfats during 

 the middle half of the nineteenth century were smooth or 

 wrinkled peas. 



American seedsmen, importing varieties from Eng- 

 land, brought with the peas the name or the classifica- 

 tion as Marrowfats, even though the seeds were wrinkled 

 and green; and the brief catalog descriptions, emphasiz- 

 ing season, pod shape and pea quality, rather than seed 



characters, left no printed clue to aid in the funda- 

 mental grouping of varieties. 



The earliest references of which we can be positive, 

 in Marrowfat history, are Townsend's naming (1726) of 

 Black-eyed Marrowfat and the phrase in Stephen 

 Switzer's Catalog for 1731 |reprint, only, seen]: "For 

 the third sowing Marrowfats," which would indicate 

 that even then they were very well known, needing no 

 description. These are followed by the Mawe-Aber- 

 crombie reference to Tall and Dwarf and Large White 

 marrowfats. These names, with various slight changes 

 and additions, such as Early and Royal have come down 

 to us from those remote times, and are so interwoven 

 that it is out of the question to straighten the tangled 

 thread of their history. Switzer also noted Spanish 

 Mulato and Nonsuch which apparently belong in this 

 group and Mawe-Abercrombie lists Egg and Crown. 

 Lady Finger was also very old. Russell in 1827 places 

 Marrowfat in America. During the succeeding century, 

 about 50 more varieties or names were added to the 

 smooth marrowfats. 



MAJOR VARIETIES IN MARROWFAT GROUP 



WHITE SEEDED SECTION 



Tall Marrowfat. Refs. 3-10; Booth Cat. 1810; 

 Lawson Agr. Man. 78. 1834; Gard. Mag. No. 77. 

 1836; Rogers Veg. Cult. 230. 1839. It is impossible 

 to fix certainly upon any ancestor for the white-seeded 

 Marrowfats, altho White Rouncival is given as a 

 synonym by several authorities, but this is doubtful; 

 or to separate the individual members of the group. 



The earliest specific reference to Tall Marrowfat, 

 after its listing by Mawe-Abercrombie, is in the catalog 

 of Wm. Booth of Baltimore; and it was, and still is, 

 given a more prominent place by seedsmen on this 

 side of the Atlantic than in England. It was generally 

 recorded as being 6 to 7 feet tall, seldom branched, 

 decidedly later than the so-called Dwarf Marrowfat, 

 with large, broad pods containing from 7 to 9 large 

 peas of excellent quality, a fair to good bearer and 

 lasting over a long season. One authority says seeds 

 more spherical than those of the Dwarf Marrowfat, less 

 wrinkled, and when compared in bulk, smoother and 

 more glossy; while another says seeds are more oval. 



The tall type was not grown in the early tests of 

 varieties at the Station, but trials of several Marrow- 

 fats have been made recently, under slightly varying 

 names and from seed supplied by different seedsmen, all 

 but two proving practically identical in seed size, shape, 

 color and surface; in height of vine; in showing basal 

 and medial branches instead of being unbranched; in 

 season (70 to 80 days to edible maturity, according 

 to time of sowing and weather conditions), in size and 

 shape of pods and peas, and in general crop production. 



Two lots of seed, however, both called " Marrow- 

 fat " only, one from the Idaho Station where it had 

 been grown in field culture, and one from a southern 

 seedsman, were decidedly earlier than other strains 

 sown at the same time, started flowers and pods lower 

 on the vine, and contained about one more pea to the 



