10 00 
fHE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
367 
THE COW PEA IN THE NORTH. 
CROSSING MASON AND DIXON’S LINE.—There 
is no finer body of farming land of equal size in the 
United States than that lying between the Ohio River 
.and the Great Lakes. Soil and markets combine to 
make it desirable. It is a Winter-wheat section, and 
Red clover fits in nicely as a renovating crop. If the 
clover were sure, there would be small need of other 
legumes, but it often fails. The southern cow pea 
crossed the Ohio River a number cf years ago—how 
many I oo not know—but my first knowledge of it 
was obta ned in 1892 from planting three acres with 
seed got from Richmond, Va., on a venture. The 
variety was the Black, and probably one better suit¬ 
ed to our needs could not be found. The seed was 
sown early m July, after wheat, and that was a mis¬ 
take. i he growth was pretty good, but a frost caught 
the vines when they were in bloom, and the way 
nitrogen was turned loose upon the neighborhood was 
a caution. I presume the bark was worse than the 
bite, and know that a little ammonia will go a long 
way, but even if most of the nitrogen were saved, 
there was not enough matured material in the growth 
to have full effect upon the mechanical condition of 
the soil the next Spring. It wasted like Jonah’s 
gourd vine. Since 1892 I have grown a great many 
acres of cow peas, and several neighbors grow them. 
Our belief is that they are a most excellent fertilizer. 
THE OBJECTIONS—We get no feeding value out 
of the pea. With me this is not a serious objection, 
as the soil must be fed, and it gets a more satisfac¬ 
tory ration out of a crop left on the ground than it 
does from a crop first fed to stock—a 
far more satisfactory ration. The soil 
needs bulk in its ration—something to 
hold the particles apari—and it needs 
such perfect distribution as is obtained 
in a crop plowed down, provided the 
thin places have been fertilized as they 
should be. But the popular legume must 
be adapted to stock-feeding. People 
want to think that they are giving the 
soil a full chance of renewing itself, 
and at the same time want a lot of feed. 
Theoretically, the manurial value finally 
gets to the soil that grew the crop; 
practically, one-half does not do so on 
most farms. The stock takes part, sheer 
waste accounts for part, and the truck 
patch takes its tithe—the robber of the 
fields that it is on most farms. 
COW-FEA HAY.—We are told that it 
is easy to make cow-pea hay. It may 
be, but I do not see my way clear to be¬ 
lieve it. Harvest time norih of the Ohio 
comes in September, and that is a poor 
hay month. Moisture leaves grass or 
vines slowly. The auvice that we haul 
the vines in green, aru tramp them in 
a close mow, is the same as that given 
by some in respect to clover. “Put 
clover into the mow as soon as outside 
moisture is evaporated,” they say. This 
pian works only for the “elect,” and 
those not elect get a slimy or moldy 
mass of manure. But I do not doubt the richness of 
the hay, when properly cured. It is full of protein. 
FOR PASTURE.—If I had fences around my culti¬ 
vated fields, I should “hog down” the peas, or rather, 
as the peas are already down, we might say “hog 
them in.” That would give us good feeding value 
without much loss of fertility, and such value would 
be a fair rental for the year that the land is sup¬ 
posed to be hustling for itself. Lack of fencing pre¬ 
vents the adoption of this plan. 
SAVING SEED.—The crop of peas is variable in 
quantity, of course. I have learned to regard 12 
bushels per acre a good yield. In the South the yield 
is said to be much better. Here we get the vine. We 
pick in bushel boxes, and 10 to 12 boxes of pods are 
required to make a bushel of peas. Men and boys 
are willing to pick in the Fall, and flail and clean in 
tne Winter for 50 cents a bushel. Some peas can be 
sold to neighbors for $1 a bushel, which is a low price 
any year, the southern seed costing usually $1.15 to 
$1.25 delivered here, and I believe that it is inferior 
to our homegrown seed for this locality. I am in¬ 
clined to quit saving seed for the reason that the 
vines must be left until maturity in that event 
HANDLING COW-PEA LAND.—The advice that 
we leave the vines on the ground until Spring, when 
a Spring crop is next in order, does not seem good. 
I did this for years, but the vines went to nothing, 
and there was little gain in material for holding the 
ground loose. I tried sowing rye in the pea vines, 
and that helped out; but last Fall we plowed the 
vines under when they were turning brown, and that 
was in time for a good seeding to rye. When the rye 
sod was broken for potatoes this Spring, the pea 
vines were found to be only partially rotted, and they 
are now mixed through the soil exactly to my satis¬ 
faction. 
VALUABLE TO THE FARMER.—In the North the 
cow pea is rather exacting in the time it wants. It 
takes all the heat of Summer—from June 1 until frost 
—and in this respect is inferior to Crimson clover. 
But It pays its rental the next year. Where it thrives 
as it does here in the latitude of Cincinnati, and 
where a leguminous crop is needed for soil feeding, 
the cow pea is worth a big sum to the farmer. But 
there is a limit to its travels northward. Just now 
it is on a free excursion even to Minnesota, but I feel 
very sure that when it is required to pay its way, we 
shall not find it in any cold clays much north of the 
Ohio River, and in warm soils it will be chiefly in 
the drainage basin of the Ohio and southward. 
Ohio. ALVA AGEE. 
HOW SOUTHERN SOILS ARE WASHEO OUT. 
Terrible Results from a “Gully ’* 
Many northern readers have had experience with 
washed or gullied hillsides. We frequently see hill¬ 
side fields that have been plowed and taken out of 
grass that are scarred and gullied almost past re¬ 
demption, but there is nothing in the North to com¬ 
pare with the desolation and damage observed in 
some portions of the South. The sudden floods of 
rain that occur south of the Ohio, and the very char¬ 
acter of the soil, render these washouts very destruc¬ 
tive. In the cotton-growing sections of the South, 
where the soil is kept out of sod until the humus is 
practically exhausted, one sees the awful damage 
wrought by running water. On sod land the water 
slowly trickles away and is held back and spread out 
by a thousand little obstacles. On the bare, steep 
hillside, however, there is nothing to stop the little 
streams of water, and they finally grow into a torrent 
that plows and gouges the surface of the soil. Fig. 
110 shows to what remarkable depths one of these 
gullies will grow if neglected. The picture is taken 
from The Soils of Tennessee, a very valuable pamph¬ 
let issued by the Tennessee Experiment Station, 
KnoxVille. This gully started in the ordinary way, 
that is, at one time there was a bare cultivated field 
at the level of tjie highest ground, shown in the pic¬ 
ture. The soil was not covered with sod nor was an 
accumulation of humus left in it. Some unusually 
heavy rain came down like a flood from the upper 
soil. This torrent gathered in some depression and 
went down into the upper soil like a plow, washing 
and scouring the finer soil away. Even then it might 
have been possible to prevent the scene of desolation 
now shown. If brush or trash had been placed at the 
top of this little gully to hold back the waters and 
allow the silt to accumulate, the field might have been 
saved. Instead of that, it was neglected, and so, year 
after year the waters plowed out more and more of 
the soil until now the awful picture shown at Fig. 110 
is presented. The figure of the man shows the com¬ 
parative depth of this gouging. 
Of course the fields are no longer fit for cultivation, 
and not only this, but the gully is steadily expand¬ 
ing and reaching into a little town nearby, so that 
unless something is done soon to prevent it, the town 
itself, or at least part of it, will be washed away. 
This is, of course, an extreme case; yet, it shows the 
danger of leaving bare hillsides unprotected with 
growing crops during the rainy season of the year. 
In our part of the country the season from late 
August until December is a dangerous one for hill¬ 
sides. The soil is usually open and loose after the 
Summer’s cultivation, and is filled With nitrates, 
which were developed during the hot weather, and not 
utilized by the growing crop. To leave such hillsides 
open and bare, exposed to the rains of Autumn, is 
little short of folly. A crop of Crimson clover, or 
even of rye, will cover the ground and protect it 
largely from the washing of the Fall rains, and catch 
and hold the nitrates, which would otherwise be 
wasted. 
RYE AS A FODDER CROP. 
Twice lately I have noticed in The R. N.-Y. that you 
do not think much of rye for fodder. You are not 
alone in your dislike. I have repeatedly noticed cattle 
refusing it, but it was neither the fault of the cattle 
nor of the rye as a fodder crop, but was due to im¬ 
proper methods of handling. I do not claim that rye 
makes the best cattle food that is grown, and yet 
situated as I have been I should not know how to get 
along without sowing a liberal breadth of it every 
year. When I was keeping an average of one animal 
to the acre on a dairy farm, chiefly by the soiling or 
stall-feeding system, I usually had about one-third of 
the tillage land in rye every year. As it makes its 
growth in the late Fall and early Spring, it never 
interfered with the use of the land for some other 
crop during the Summer months. In this latitude 
there is time for a full corn crop after 
cutting rye fodder in June, and this may 
be taken off in season to sow rye for the- 
next year’s use. I have had 10 acre3 
in rye, all grown as “catch” crop on a 
26-acre farm. I have sown it so early in 
the Fall that a good swath could be cut 
the same season, and so late that it only 
just showed itself before Winter set in. 
The earliest sowings will be first ready 
to cut in May or June, but the later sow¬ 
ings will not be as many days behind in 
Spring as they were in the Fall. Farm¬ 
ers would like the crop better if they 
would begin cutting earlier than most 
do. One early season I began cutting 
the last day in April, the heads hardly 
any of them in sight. By feeding spar¬ 
ingly at first, in connection with dry 
hay, the cows ate it without any ill ef¬ 
fects, and came gradually to full feed¬ 
ings of it, and relished it as well as 
they would any other green food. But 
by the time the heads are in blossom, or 
nearly so, the fiber becomes so tough 
and woody that it is not eaten readily. 
Like Orchard grass and Timothy, only 
more so, rye grows woody fast after 
reaching the blooming stage. By having 
early and late sowings I have been able 
some years to feed green rye nearly 
three weeks in May and June, just when 
perhaps the “fodder problem” otherwise 
would have bothered us greatly. 
I once paid $88 for two tons of baled hay to carry 
my cows through the last weeks of Winter feeding, 
before the new grass was ready to turn into in the 
pasture. That was before I had learned the value of 
rye as a fodder crop. By changing too suddenly from 
dry hay to a full feed of green rye it is possible to 
injure the quality of the milk, just as it would be 
with any other green stuff fed in excess. Cows would 
also shrink if forced to live on rye fodder after it had 
become so tough that they would not eat enough of 
it. If rye is cut for hay a little before it is in bloom, 
and the weather is favorable to drying it, it makes 
very fair hay for Winter use for cows. If it stands 
a little later it still makes good hay for working ani¬ 
mals that are fed grain in addition. Cured rye would 
be much better for work horses than the rye pasture 
you speak of in your Hope Farm Notes. But no fod¬ 
der will cure as easily in the early Summer as later, 
when the ground gets hot and dry. I want a good 
tedder for stirring it, but would let it lie and wilt at 
least one day before touching it. If cut when free 
from dew the top will be pretty well wilted in one 
good day, then if turned over and left another day it 
will be in good condition to gather into windrows 
with the horse rake. After that I would keep the 
tedder moving in it, and hurry it up all I could. In 
some kinds of weather it may be well to cock it and 
cover with caps for a day or more. If the weather is 
continuously unfavorable for curing it as hay, it will 
still be worth all it cost as bedding for horses or 
other stock. I never grew any that I thought would 
be worth as much to plow in as to use in other ways. 
Still, I would sooner have a field covered with rye in 
Winter, to be plowed in early in Spring, than to have 
it exposed to Winter washing when the ground is 
bare. a. w. cheever. 
Massachusetts. 
A SOUTHERN GULLY AND HOW IT GROWS. Fig. 110 
