AGRICULTURAL NOTES 
For the following sugestions upon agriculture and fruit raising we are 
mainly indebted to Mr. W. F. Massey, of the North Carolina Experiment 
Station. He is an eminently practical man, and has done much to in¬ 
augurate, by precept and example, improved and up to date methods of 
farming. 
COW PEAS. 
The advantages of the crop may be thus briefly stated: 
1. It is a nitrogen gatherer. 
2. It shades the soil in summer, keeping it in a condition the most 
suitable to the most rapid nitrification, and leaves it friable and loose, in 
the best condition for a future crop. 
3. It has a large root development, and hence pumps up from great * 
depths and large areas the water, and with it the mineral matter needed 
by the plant. 
4. Its adaptability to all kinds of soils—stiffest clays to most porous 
sands; fertile alluvial bottoms to barren uplands. 
5. It stands the heat and sunshine of southern summers. 
6. Its rapid growth enables the farmer in the South to grow two crops 
a year on the same soil. 
7. If sown thickly it will by its rapid growth and shade effectually 
smother all weeds, and thus serve as a cleansing crop. 
8. It is the best preparatory crop known to the Southern farmer. 
Every kind of crop grows well after it. 
9. It furnishes a most excellent food in large quantities for both man 
and animals. If used regularly in a short system of rotation the soils 
of the South would soon rival, in fertility, their primitive condition. 
The average quantity of nitrogen alone found in an acre of peas in 
experiments made in six Southern States is 122 pounds per acre. 
This doubtless came almost entirely from the air, and at the average 
value paid by farmers for nitrogen in commercial fertilizers would be 
worth alone over $18 per acre. In addition to this there is the phos¬ 
phoric acid and potash made available as plant food, and largely brought 
from depths beyond the range of other crops. The best varieties for 
vines and green manuring are the Unknown, Black, Clay, Red; while the 
strictly bunch varieties, Whippoorwill, Black-Eye, Blue, etc., give larger 
returns in peas. As to the Unknown, we would, however, say that it is 
not yet sufficiently acclimated to make its best growth north of the 
James River, in Virginia. 
Cow peas and pea-vine hay have a very high feeding value, being 
rich in flesh and fat-forming matter, whilst the vines, when made into 
silage, have been proved to be palatable and nutritious food for stock. 
The proper disposition to make of pea vines is to convert them into 
hay or silage and feed to stock, carefully returning the manure to the 
soil. In the absence of stock the vines should be turned under in the 
fall and the land be seeded to crimson clover, wheat, rye, or oats. If the 
land be too poor to bring peas without help, give it 200 or 300 pounds 
to the acre of acid phosphate and kainit in equal parts, and it will make 
a crop. Sow cow peas on all land not planted to some other crop, and 
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