1876.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
139 
To Sharpen Posts or Rails Conveniently. 
A good manager will so provide and arrange the 
work that there will be no season of leisure upon 
the farm. Preparing fencing material is useful 
work for winter, or that portion of a northern 
spring that is more unfavorable for many opera¬ 
tions than winter itself. The sharpening of posts 
and stakes is a laborious task, and a simple method 
for holding them, as is here described, will be a 
great convenience. First procure a block of wood 
three or four feet in length, a foot in width, and 
four or more inches in thickness, in the center of 
one side of which make a cavity one inch deep and 
■eight or nine inches wide with an ax. When a post 
is to be sharpened, place one of its ends in the 
crotch of a tree and the other resting in the cavity 
of the block, which is placed near the tree. The 
method of doing this is shown in the illustration, 
page 140. In the absence of a tree, a crotched 
stick can be driven into the ground, or two stakes 
so arranged as to form a substitute, as seen in the 
engraving. During inclement weather the work 
may be done in a shed or barn, and by using the 
block, there will be no danger of cutting the floor. 
, Skeleton Roofing. 
The subject of roofing is one of great importance 
to every farmer who has many out-buildings, and 
the hints here given by a correspondent will be of 
use to many. The accompanying sketch shows 
a shingled roof in which cheapness and durability 
are combined. In the common shingle roof the 
rafters are wholly covered with boards, to the up¬ 
per surface of which the shingles are nailed; by 
the plan here shown, strips inch thick, and 3 or 3* 
inches wide, placed at that distance apart to receive 
each course of shingle nails. The strips are desig¬ 
nated by the letter P, P, P, P, in the figure. This is 
indeed a skeleton roof, and it is evidently cheaper 
than when wholly covered, and will dry out more 
readily when wet, and is therefore more durable. 
The Southern “Cow Pea.” 
A few years ago we saw at a fair in a southern 
state, a bag of seeds of unfamiliar appearance, and 
asked our companion what kind of beans those 
were. “Those are not beans,” was the reply, 
“but Cow Peas, our great forage plant.”—We in¬ 
sisted that whatever else they might be, they were 
not peas in a botanical sense, but the exhibitor of 
the seeds, overhearing the conversation, set the 
matter at rest—at least to his own satisfaction—by 
asserting, “I know them’s peas, for I raised ’em 
myself.”—This was our first acquaintance with the 
cow-pea or field pea of which we had heard and 
read so much. It is a crop of great value in all the 
southern states ; if one asks a southern planter if 
he has tried clover, he will most likely be told that 
there is no need of trying it, as they have in this 
pea a perfect substitute, and claim that it is in 
every respect superior to clover, whether for fod¬ 
der or as a green manure crop. Upon inquiry as to 
what the plant was, or where it came from, we 
have not been able to get anything more definite 
than it is “the common pea of the country.”—The 
writers in southern agricultural papers speak of it 
as a species or variety of the pea proper, and in 
looking up the matter in all the available works, we 
'found but few instances in which any hint is given 
that the writer considered the plant essentially dif¬ 
ferent from the garden and field pea of Europe and 
the northern states. In one case, Edmund Ruffin, 
a distinguished Virginia agriculturist, in an address 
at Charleston, S. C., mentioned it as “ The native 
Southern'Pea (cow pea),” and in Emerson’s Farm¬ 
ers’ Encyclopaedia, under “Cow Pea,” it is twice 
referred to as a variety of the “Indian Pea,” but as 
the Indian pea is not given in the work, we are left 
in doubt whether the writer meant American In¬ 
dian, or East Indian. In his excellent “Resources 
of the Southern Fields and Forests,” Dr. F. Pyre 
Porcher, Charleston, S. C., says under Cow Pea, 
that he thinks it may be a Vetch ( Vida ), but it is 
quite as far from this as from the true pea ( Pisum ), 
While there were abundant accounts giving the 
uses and value of the plant, and its cultivation, we 
could find nothing which told what this widely dis¬ 
tributed and very common plant was. As the visit 
to the south referred to, was after the crops had 
been harvested, we could find no growing plants, 
and we had to wait until we could cultivate them our¬ 
selves. Knowing that there were several varieties 
of the Cow Pea, we endeavored to procure as many 
as possible; through the friendly aid of P. J. Berck- 
mans, Esq., Col. J. M. Stubbs, M. W. Johnson, 
Esq., (Seedsman, Atlanta), and the editor of the 
Southern Cultivator (Athens), all of Georgia; H. 
B. Shaw, Esq., Louisiana; A. J. Wright, Esq., 
Miss., andDr. J. A. Anderson, of Tenn., we received 
some 30 named samples, of which 20, in the color, 
size, and shape of the seeds, were distinct. These 
were sown in rows in the garden the same as bush 
beans ; not knowing that the pMnts spread, some 
of them covering - an area of several feet, it was 
found when too late, that they were much too 
close, and the fall being wet, they grew into a 
tangled thicket; some ripened a few pods, and 
others none, there being a marked difference in 
their earliness. In habit some were quite bushy, 
while others made long, and even twining branches 
running 4 to 6 feet. The leaves in all are of three 
leaflets differing greatly in size and shape, some 
being oval, others broadly ovate or rhomboid ; the 
downiness of the plants also varies. The flowers 
are few, at the end of along stalk ; they have some¬ 
what the shape of those of the bean, but that part 
called the keel is not twisted as in that; the color 
varies from yellowish or cream color to light purple. 
The pods from 3 to 8 inches long, narrow, mostly 
straight; in some only two on a stalk, and in others 
three or four. In the seeds themselves are to be 
found the greatest differences in size, shape, color, 
and markings, some of the most distinct of these 
kinds are shown in the engravings, which gives size 
and shape, though but little idea of color. We have 
classified our 20 varieties according to their color 
and markings, and make the following groups in 
each, naming the largest variety first. (1.) Seeds 
cream color, with a minute olive-green line at the 
eye ; White Table (also Mush and Dennis’ Field), 
Lady, Six-oaks Field. (2.) Cream-colored, with a 
brownish stain at the eye ; Red-hulled White, Su¬ 
gar Crowder, White Crowder, (both nearly globu¬ 
lar), Brown-eye, WhitoField. (3.) The same, but 
with a distinct bfack eye. White Crowder (differ¬ 
ent from the one above named), Black-eyed White. 
(4.) Drab, usually darker at the eye. Clay-bank, 
Joiner’s Long-pod. (5.) Yellowish-brown, with a 
minute dark line at the eye. Yellow Crowder, Yel¬ 
low Cow. (6.) Purplish-brown, or reddish-chocolate 
color, with dark line at the eye. Red Ripper, (also 
Tory), Breach, Red Cow. (7.) Yellowish or purplish- 
brown, mottled with very dark brown or black, 
especially towards the eye ; Speckled Java (also 
Early Bush), Whippoorwill (also Speckled ditto, 
and Shiny), (8) Jet Black, with a small white scar; 
Black Field. A careful examination snowed that 
the plants belong to the genus Dolichos, and into 
that section of it that recent botanists place in a 
separate genus, Vtgna; but could they be all of one 
species ? Comparing these varieties with the many 
forms of the garden bean {Phascolus vulgaris), the 
differences among the cow-peas are no greater 
than are shown by the various forms of that. 
Which species to refer them to was not an easy 
matter, but they agreed best with D. Catjang, as 
described in Lourerios’ Flora of Cochin China, of 
which several forms with native names have been 
cultivated in that country, and in China, from very 
early times. Knowing that his immense herbarium 
and extensive library would throw some light 
on the matter, we sent several specimens to 
Prof. Gray, who informs us that they agree with 
the old D. Sinensis of Linn, which is the same plant 
Lourerio has as D. Catjang. We are, then, no doubt 
safe in considering all the forms of the cow-pea as 
Dolichos Sinensis, of the older authors, but more 
properly, according to later botanists, Vigna Sinen¬ 
sis. We mention these details to show how diflficult 
it sometimes is to get at the botanical name of a 
cultivated plant. We sent to Dr. Gray after we 
supposed that we had exhausted every source of 
information at hand, but before his reply came, we 
happened to think that the industrious Mr. White, 
in his “ Gardening for'the South,” might say some¬ 
thing about the plant, and on consulting this we 
111 
©I® 
VARIETIES OE SOUTHERN COW TEAS. 
1. Whippoorwill.—2. Speckled Java.—3. Black Field.—4. 
Six-Oaks Field.—5. Sugar Crowder.—6. Tory, or lied Rip¬ 
per.—7. White Crowder.—8. No name received. 
found that he refers cow-pea to Dolichos, though he 
gets the species wrong, and he is only one who, so 
far as we are aware, gives even a hint towards the 
name of the genus. Related plants, often cultivated, 
are the Hyacinth Bean, a climber with large purple 
clusters of flowers Dolichos Lablab, and the Aspara¬ 
gus, or Yard-long Bean, which is Dolichos —or more 
properly Yigna scsquipedalis, a good pole snap bean 
if used when young. The name Dolichos is the 
Greek word for elongated, given to some tall climb¬ 
ing bean, and Vigna is in honor of an Italian of that 
name who wrote about plants early in the 17th cen¬ 
tury. Cow-pea is an unfortunate name, as the 
plant in its botanical relations is much nearer a 
bean than a pea, but such common names when 
once established are sure to hold. The character 
of the foliage, the absence of tendrils, the shape of 
the seeds, and especially the fact that the seed- 
leaves appear above ground in germinating, all 
jvidely separate it from the nea and ally it to the 
bean. An article upon the cultivation of this inter¬ 
esting and important plant by a southern cultivator 
is promised for another month. 
The Ovster-suell Bark-Louse.— Prof. S. V. 
Rathvon, reports in his paper, the Lancaster Farm¬ 
er, that he has seen the late Mr. Walsh’s remedy 
for this troublesome insect used with excellent 
success. It consists in simply applying neat’s-foot, 
lard, or other non-drying oil, to the portions of the 
tree infested by the louse. It is put on with a 
brush, just before the buds expand, without injury 
to the tree, and to the complete destruction of the 
insects. 
