20 BULLETIN 119, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Numerous other articles concerning the Oregon pea occur in the 
agricultural literature of the period. Most of the reports referring 
to its cultivation in the Southern States are favorable as regards its 
value for forage, but there is much variance of opiion concerning 
the desirability of the beans as human food. The best account is by 
Ruffin, of Virginia, who in his article on the southern pea (1855, p. 
355) includes a description of the plant as follows: 
The small green or bush-pea—formerly called by Mr. Herbemont, of South Carolina, 
the Chickasaw. This kind only, of all enumerated and described here, seems to be a 
true pea, and therefore is not of the same species with all the other kinds, here termed 
varieties of the southern pea [cowpea]. Very recently, this pea has been brought 
before the public under the name of the Oregon pea, and as if a new as well as most 
wonderful plant. In this way, its real good qualities have been extravagantly exag- 
gerated, and the trumpeters of the false praises have practiced on the public credulity 
so as to sell the seeds at from $60 to $80 the bushel. Though not reaching half the 
grade (at least in my culture), claimed for it by the interested eulogists, this pea has 
some peculiar and excellent qualities. It has been more than 20 years since I obtained 
the seed, and have cultivated it at several different times. The cessations were caused 
by neglect to save seed, and the difficulty of saving them, without unusual care. 
The seeds are round, and when dry, of a uniform bright pea-green color. They are 
very small—scarcely as large as duck-shot—and not more than one-third of the size of 
seed of the early black, buff or other ordinary peas. Of course, fewer seed (by two- 
thirds or more) will serve for seeding. On the other hand, the young plants are propor- 
tionably small, feeble in growth at first, and therefore exposed to be over-powered by 
weeds, if broad-cast, or to be smothered by tillage, if among corn, or drilled. In later 
growth, the plant is large and vigorous. It is not a vine (like all kinds of the true 
southern pea) but an upright-growing shrub, or bush, with large and rough (vilose) 
leaves, of entirely different appearance from those of all other ordinary varieties. 
* * * But because of this peculiar manner of growth, this pea is much more easily 
turned under by the plough than any other kind. This is the great if not the only 
ground of superiority. The pods are black and short. Ii they could remain on the 
stems safely until frost, the gathering would be as easy as of any others, as the pods 
grow in clusters of from 3 to 6. But a great disadvantage is that if the ripe pods are 
not gathered before the first rain, they will burst open on drying, and waste their seeds. 
The ripening also is as late as of any known pea. The main value of this pea must 
be to plough under as a manure for wheat. Mr. Herbemont, of South Carolina, in a 
communication long ago published in the Farmers’ Register, stated that this plant 
was valuable for hay. If it will make as good forage and hay as the other vine peas, 
(and none can be better,) this plant in its manner of growth, would have a peculiar 
advantage, In being easy to mow by the scythe. 
This pea, different from all described as varieties of the great family of southern 
peas, is not of native origin. It has been supposed to have been derived from India, 
and more lately and falsely from Oregon. I believe it is from some warm coast of the 
Mediterranean Sea. The only certain information I have had was that some barrels 
of the peas were bought at Gosport Navy Yard, at a sale of the old and damaged stores 
of a frigate returned from a Mediterranean cruise. 
[Footnote.] Since writing the above, I have inspected, at the United States Patent 
Office, some beans and peas, brought from remote countries. Among them was a pea 
brought from China, which seems to be the same with the kind above described. 
The Chinese seeds differ from our ‘‘Oregon” pea only in being something smaller, and 
not so plump and round, and being of a more pale and dull green color—as would be 
if gathered before being quite mature. 
