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during rapid growth will reveal large quantities of wart-like tubercles 

 which when crushed and a portion examined under the microscope 

 will reveal countless thousands of bacteria, peculiar to this plant living 

 in symbiotic union with its host. Nothing can supplant the cow pea 

 in the short rotation adopted by the sugar planter. Cow peas perform 

 many valuable functions. By their deep roots and immense foliage 

 they pump up from great depths and evaporate large quantities of 

 water, and thus placing the soil in a condition relative to moisture 

 most favourable to nitrification. They intensely shade the ground, 

 thus protecting the nitrogen ferments from the destructive influences 

 of direct sunlight, and enabling them to work directly up th the sur- 

 face. Their tap roots are pumping, along with water, soluble plant 

 food from great depths. 



But the chief virtue lies in its extraordinary power of utilising the 

 free nitrogen of the air. Therefore, it is used once in three years to 

 restore the nitrogen exhausted by two crops of cane. 



Sometimes second year stubble is carried, and then the pea crop is 

 every fourth year. A few planters practice a continuous growing of 

 cane, and in doing so plant pease in the old stubble and cut the latter 

 early for seed cane, and bury the pea vines for the coming plant cane. 



A crop of corn is planted, and when it reaches the height of a few 

 feet, it is laid by and simultaneously sown with cow pease, using one to 

 three bushels per acre, of the Clay, Unknown or Black varieties. Early 

 in summer the corn is gathered and sometimes the pea vines made into 

 hay for the stock of the plantations. In either event, the soil, with or 

 without the pea vines, is turned under with four, six or eight horse 

 plow in August or early in September, and the cane planted in Octo- 

 ber. 



Ordinarily, the root residues of the pea vines give enough nitrogen 

 for the ensuing plant cane, and many planters positively assert on this 

 account that it makes no difference to future crops whether they are 

 removed or turned under, but carefully conducted experiments on this 

 station show that when turned under there was an average increase of 

 7.42 tons of cane per acre, extending through plant and stubble, over 

 soil treated similarly, with vines removed for hay. Yet where there is 

 stock to be fed, it is wise to utilise the vines as hay and restore the 

 manure from the stables to the soil. 



Up to date the work of inverting the corn stalks and pea vines has 

 been performed by large turning ploughs with steel discs, for cutting the 

 vines, attached in front. These ploughs are difficult to handle and f re- 

 quently get choked, making the operation a slow, tedious and expensive 

 one. Recently the disc ploughs have been placed on the market, and one 

 of them has been successfully used by the station for such work. 



It has on our soil buried successfully pea vines that were waist high 

 and very thick, ploughing to the depth of ten inches and cutting a fur- 

 row 15 inches wide. It was drawn by three heavy mules and showed 

 on the dynamometer a pull of 500 to 550 pounds. It was managed 

 entirely by one hand who rode on the plough. There was no choking 

 and no stopping to clean the plough. Nearly three acres per day 

 can be ploughed with this implemen^ For flushing land it has no 

 equal, and the draught is much lighter than with the four-horse plough 



