The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1891-02-11
FARMER AND PLANTER.
LET US HAVE PEAS
An Important Crop for Southern Farmers
tn Raise.

An important crop Tor southern FARMERS
to Raise
There are many reasons why South
ern farmers should have plenty of stock
peas. Their value as fodder and pastur-
age is alone sufficient to commend them;
but these qualities are by no means their
only recommendation. They are the
most available green manure crop we
can plant IN the South. All kinds of
soil are greatly benefited by blowing
under green pea vines. The sugar
planters of Louisiana have for years
recognized the pea vine as the quickest
and most effective renovator of their
sugar lands that has ever been adopted.
New Orleans is the largest stock pea
market in the United States. III varie
ties of this legume find ready sale there.
The wholesale dealers in plantation
supplies buy thousands of bushels every
autumn from the farmers of Georgia,
Alabama, Tennessee, the Carolinas and
other States, and sell them in the spring
to the planters, who SOW them broad
cast upon the fields they want to inn
prove.
The most popular varieties for this
purpose are the CLAY and Tory, or red
pea. The little black pea is also very
popular. All three of these varieties
are very hardy, and the seed will lie on
the ground through the winter without
rotting, and come up the following
spring in great numbers, thus saving
one planting, where it is desirable to
plow under two green crops in success
sion.
The Unknown pea is an immense
vine producer and is gaining general
favor in the South 1t is also a prolific
bearer, maturing it's crops late in the
fall. The Little Couch pea is also a
great vine producer, but poor bearer
below the 30th degree of north lati-
tude. The Whippoorwill is speckled
pea, a good bearer of the bunch vari-
ETY., and is popular for hay, being easily
cut on account of its bunchy growth.
For table use, the white varieties
take the lead, and find ready sale in all
Southern towns and cities. Among the
best of these are the Rice and Lady
peas, both being small and very pretty
in appearance, and the Blaclseye, which
is large, plump pea and a fine bearer.
A new and very important use has
Just been discovered for stock peas. 1t
is found that the cotton boil worm.
which annually destroys a great deal of
cotton, is the same worm that bores
into the green pea pods, green corn and
green tomatoes. Mr.. jeff Welborn, one
of the closest students of agricultural
problems in the South, says, in a recent
letter to Texas Farm and Ranch: 81
think | have found solution to the
bollworm problem" He then goes on
to state his observations of the boil
worm in green peas, and says: "The
peas seem to be more relished by the
worms than cotton. | believe there
are fifty boll-worms in my pea patch to
one in the cotton on each side of it,"
Mr. Welborn in this connection sug-
gests that cotton planters SOW peas near
their cotton fields, so as to be in full
bearing about the time the cotton be-
gins W II III OIIef W DIVERT Cle DOLL
worm fly or moth from the cotton to
the pea patch.
! heard an old cotton planter say not
long since, that next year he intended
to plant every alternate row in cotton
field with stock peas, in order to enrich
the land. If Mr.. Welborn's theory of
the boil worm preferring the green cow
pea to the green cotton boil is correct,
this planter will ''llill two birds with
one stone, when he plants every alter
nate row of his cotton field in stock
peas. The following year he intends to
reverse the rows, that is, plant cotton
where the peas grew, and more peas
where the cotton grew the preceding
year. BY following up this plan con-
tinuously, the cotton planter will not
only protect his crop from the ravages
of the boil worm. but also keep his land
in high state of filth the meanwhile
Dick Naylor in Farm and Home.