1 Ava., 1898.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 93 
the cow pea does best on fairly light, well-drained soil, though, if you have not this 
description, grow it on any soil you have except swamp. Plough 6 inches at the least, 
and, if the land is clean, sow about 60 lb. of seed to theacre. Harrow wellandroll. If 
the soil is likely to be weedy, harrow, sow, and, if there is sufficient moisture in the 
ground, plough theseed in to adepth of 8 inches. By doing sothe peas will be up in four 
orfive days, and getagood startof the weeds. Thecalendaradvises planting every month 
in the year ; but the time for planting in this district should be the end of December and 
early in January. My reasons for planting at this time are that if you plant earlier 
the crop generally suffers for want of rain, grows stragegly, and does not mature 
regularly ; and though it will live and keep green in the driest of times, it will make 
yery little growth until the January rains, with the result that it is ready for cutting 
in February—our wettest time—and the seed (being very sensitive to moisture) goes 
mouldy in the husk, and the crop is only good for manure. If planted later there is 
generally too much wet (except on very light soil) and the young roots rot, and there 
is nothing but feeble and sickly plants. If much later, the weather gets too cool for 
it to thrive, as it loves heat and moisture. Well, say the crop is planted in the first 
week in January. All things being favourable, in the first week of April the crop 
should stand 2 feet 6 inches to 3 feet high, and the surface should be one mass of 
brown seed pods. It is then ready for cutting. I have tried cutting with a machine, 
but owing to so much moisture in the stems the machine clogged, so that I could 
not use it. So I have always had to use scythes. A man can mow an ordinary 
crop at the rate of an acre a day; but sometimes on good soil the crop gets very 
much entangled. Then I have found the best way is to have a lad with a sickle 
marking off the swarths. he crop when mown should not be touched until the 
third or fourth morning. Then start early while it is damp, go along the 
swarths with the fork and put it together—a good forkful in a heap— leave 
until the fifth cr sixth day; and, if the weather has been favourable, it is then 
ready to cart to the stack. With a little care in putting the heaps together, the 
field after carting should be perfectly clean except for a certain number of pods that 
always fall off. If seed be an object, these could be easily picked up by children. 
Horses and cows will very soon pick them up; but I always put a lot of pigs on to 
glean. ‘The ground is now clean. The heavy rains have not washed the nitrogen and 
ammonia from the soil; but the cow pea has actually added to the soil a certain 
amount of nitrogen—our most valuable plant food. Its dense foliage has acted as a 
mulch, kept weeds from growing, and, with the large amount of soft roots, has left 
the soil in such a mellow and friable condition that when the cultivator has been over 
it, the land is ready for wheat, oats, barley, or any crop you choose to put in. In 
our Western wheatgrowing areas the cow pea should be a valuable crop to plant after 
the wheat is harvested and feed it off with sheep, and there will be fat sheep for 
market, and clean, rich, ground ready for the next wheat crop. According to Professor 
Shelton’s tables of food values, the cow pea is the most perfect natural food, and I can 
say from experience and the testimony of my neighbours that chaffed it is the best 
milk-producer we have. I fed my horses on it all last winter. They did their work 
well, were fat and sleek, and looked as well or better than those that were cornfed. 
Our fowls we feed on the seed, and they lay well. We feed them to our pigs. 
Boiled, they are a good vegetable, and the young green pods are equal to the snake 
bean. Ido not think there is another plant grown which is so generally valuable to a 
farmer. In saying the seed I should think a good threshing machine would be the 
best when grown on a large scale. Where the pods are hand-picked, if they are laid 
in the sun for a few days a great many of them open, and they are then easily threshed 
by hand. Ihave a set of riddles under my chatf-cutter—a small size to let the dust, 
fine chaff, and broken seed through, and a larger one above it to throw off the coarser 
part of the chaff, but let the seed through. By this means I was able to save about 
20 bushels of clean saleable seed per acre. Of course I lost a good deal of seed in 
the chaff. I see Mr. H. A. Tardent, writing on this subject in the Queensland 
Agricultural Journal, speaks of 8 lb. of seed as sufficient for an acre. With such a 
small quantity of sced it will run all over the ground like sweet potato vines; but if 
planted thickly, every plant will stand erect, except on very rich land, and I do not 
advise growing the pea on very rich soil. There is a large demand for seed for the 
sugar plantations if it could be sold at a cheap rate. I do not know what price they 
would give. Perhaps some of their representatives present can inform us. J know 
they will not give 4d. per lb. I thine it would pay very well at 2d. or 3d, Like 
every useful plant, the cow pea has its enemies. ‘The first I noticed was some minute 
insect that eats part of the outside of the leaves, leaving a skeleton leaf. I do not 
think it does the plant much harm. The next and worst is a large insect that bores 
and deposits its eggs in the young pods, which eggs hatch into worms and destroy the 
pod. ‘They were very numerous this year. Then when the seed was nearly ripe the 
