273 



" Peas (like red clover, which is also a plant 

 of the pea tribe,) draw sustenance very largely 

 from the atmosphere, by their system of broad 

 leaves, compared to what they draw from the 

 soil. Hence such plants take less from the land, 

 and return more to it, than any others, and, 

 therefore, are the best of manuring or meliorat- 

 ing crops, to be alternated with the more ex- 

 hausting grain, and tillage crops. In this re- 

 spect, red clover has stood unrivalled, because 

 in the more northern and improved lands, where 

 its admirable manuring and cleansing qualities 

 have been fully experienced, peas cannot be as 

 well raised. From some trials made here, there 

 is good reason to hope that red clover may be 

 raised to great advantage, even without lime, 

 the application of which would ensure its per- 

 feet success. But, even if this were not so, the 

 pea crop sown broadcast is scarcely less valua- 

 ble than clover as a manuring crop, and supe- 

 rior to it in several other respects. And the 

 great ground of recommendation of the pea 

 crop, is that it may be introduced after either of 

 several different grain crops, and to fill longer 

 or shorter intervals of time, which would other- 

 wise be fruitless for melioration, or serve to fill 

 the land with foul weeds and depredating in- 

 sects. In this manner, peas may be advan- 

 tageously used to improve and add to any scheme 

 of rotation of crops — lessening the exhausting 

 operation and destructive effects of the worst 

 rotations — or making one really improving and 

 excellent, which without the addition of peas 

 would be more exhausting than meliorating. 



"The principal experience which I have had 

 of peas as a manuring and cleansing crop in 

 my own practice, was the sowing the field 

 broadcast, upon a good and clean ploughing, 

 and harrowing in the seed, (of the cow pea, or 

 some other variety producing much vine and 

 leaf,) about one and a half bushels to the acre. 

 The crop at or near maturity of the more for- 

 ward pods, should be well ploughed under about 

 a month before the time to sow wheat. The 

 wheat should be sown on the same furrow, and 

 covered by the harrow. This is an admirable 

 preparation, serving by the thickly covering and 

 shading and smothering and subsequently kill- 

 ing of the peas, well to cleanse and also to ma- 

 nure the land, and to produce a much better 

 crop of wheat than can possibly follow corn, 

 cotton, and still more, wheat itself or other broad- 

 cast grain. The sole objection to this prepara- 

 tion is the cost of the ploughing for the pea 

 seeding; and this perhaps may be often saved 

 by a new practice of which I have recently 

 learned something elsewhere. The black pea, 

 and also a dark red pea, will lie upon the ground, 

 or remain covered therein, through winter with- 

 out rotting, and will germinate and grow in the 

 spring. Availing of this property, these peas 

 have been successfully sown both late in autumn 

 Vol. III.— 35 



(or eaily part of winter,) with wheat, and in 

 spring with oats. The peas grow but little 

 until the grain crop is removed, and then grow 

 rapidly, and soon form a good cover. It is not 

 to be supposed that this plan will always suc- 

 ceed. But it has done well, on a small scale of 

 operations, for three years as conducted by Wra. 

 R. Davis, Esq. in Fairfield, and for six years 

 on a larger scale, by Major J. Littlejohn in 

 Union. 



" If it be not desired to use the broadcast pea 

 crop to prepare for and measure for wheat — or 

 if it be preferred to save the crop for hay — then, 

 the latter may be done, as I had the benefit of 

 seeing but a few days ago, on the neighboring 

 plantation of one of your Society, the Hon. J. 

 C. Calhoun. The crop of peas was mowed by 

 the scythe ; and after laying a few hours in the 

 sun, and without being turned, the vines were 

 put up in high and narrow cocks around a stake 

 five or six feet high, to stand until cured enough 

 to be stored in the house. This plan (which, 

 by the way, with smaller cocks, is the best mode 

 I have ever known of curing all kinds of grass 

 for hay) — saves the trouble of turning the hay 

 with forks, and the loss by such turning causing 

 the dropping the leaves and shedding the ripe 

 peas, as well as too much sunning the hay 7 ". — 

 The provender thus saved is excellent, and the 

 land is left clean for any succeeding crop. In 

 this case, the cow pea was the variety used, 

 and the sowing was in May, at the rate of two 

 and a half bushels to the acre. 



"A still more admirable plan of raising peas 

 I saw on part of the same plantation. The 

 seed had been sown broadcast (one bushel to 

 the acre) in the corn land at, the last ploughing, 

 which was in July. The crop of corn we sup- 

 pose may be twenty-five bushels to the acre ; 

 and the peas (as seen on the 26th of September) 

 formed a thick and rank cover of the whole 

 ground." 



PLOUGHS. 

 We have been in the habit of considering 

 a guage wheel to a plough an appendage 

 of very doubtful utility, and we believe it 

 has been almost universally discarded in the 

 few instances in which it has been introduced 

 amongst our old fashioned Virginia farmers ; al- 

 though the truth is, we believe three-fourths of 

 them never saw a plough with a wheel to it, 

 and many of them have very little idea to what 

 part it is attached. Yet we find the following 

 remarks in the report of the committee who su- 

 perintended the ploughing match at the grand 

 State fair at. Rochester, New York : 



"Many of them came unprovided with a 



