The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1900-05-08

0OuUnern Michigan. Seed taken
gradually from South to North as
! they will mature have enabled the
plant to become accHmated much
further North than was thought pos
sible few years ago. Of course it
! reaches its greatest value and de-
velOpment in a warm climate and a
sandy soil. Few farmers supposed
a few years ago that the farmers in
Illinois and Missouri would be grow
ing cow peas for forage, and finding
them a success. A feeder of beef
cattle for the export trade in Mis-
| souri, says that no food he can get
will finish off a beef like the hay of
the COW pea.
Another man in Missouri whose
business is the raising of thorough
bred horses says there is no feed
equal to COW pea hay for finishing up
a colt. From extensive experiments
at the Station and among farmers in
the vicinity of the Station, the Mis-
souri, Station advises the farmers of
the State to grow COW peas for hay
rather than timothy. And yet the
Southern farmer has for years and
generations been regretting that he
cannot grow-hay in the South as they
do in the North, and has accepted it
as fact that he cannot feed cattle
| because of the lack of hay. With
the COW pea, which he can grow bet
| ter than it can be grown anywhere
else, he can compete with any part
of the country in feeding cattle. If
/ the Missouri farmers find it more
/ profitable to grow COW pea hay than
/ timothy it should be found still more
profitable to grow it in the South
where the pea is more at home. Our
/ farmers have for years been expert
menting with various kinds of for
age plants, such as cat-tail miuet,
German millet, teosinte, and all the
| weeds that have Of late been sent
out as forage plants, while all the
while they have had in the pea
plant of surprising excellence for all
the purposes of forage, while at the
same time it returns to the land
more than it takes away from it.
The wonder is not that the pea is
being more extensively grown in the
South, but that it has ever been neg
lected But it will not do to assume
that the pea will make any soil per
manently fertile. It gives nitrogen
making humus, but in order to do
this it needs feeding, for it is a greedy
consumer of phOSphOriC acid and pot
ash. We have for years urged upon
the farmer the fact that by feeding
the pea we can more rapidly increase
the prOductiveness of our land, than
by the shOrt-sighted policy of apply
ing fertilizers to the sale crop direct
and buying the nitrogen we could
have gotten without cost and even
at profit. Applying the cheaper
forms of plant food to the pea crop
we get a large increase in the forage
crop that is going to stay on the farm
to be fed to animals. 1t is easy to
see that the heavier the forage crop,
| the more more animals can be fed.
The more stock we feed and feed
we'll, the more manure VIC make at
! home and make the need for nitro
! o-o-,o,,c Fo-+;1;1O7C u+i77 7oCO PoiCinr
the richest of forage and feeding it
we will constantly be increasing our
ability to feed as the productiveness
of the soil increases.
An increase in the pea crop must
invariably be followed by an increase
in the crop that succeeds it whether
it be wheat, corn or cotton. Hence
the feeding of the peas and the in
crease of the forage crop starts the
| increase all around from the manure
pile to the granary or store houses,
and year by year it will go on in an
increasing ratio simply because you
! feed the crop that feeds the land.
There has been notion that it is
necessary to go to great deal Of
trouble to cure peas into hay. The
fact is that there is no hay more
easily cured. When sOwn for hay
we would SOW very thickly if the
land Is strong so as to prevent the
stems getting too large and saTpy.
Then when the first pods turn ~ellow,
NOW the peas and after they have
wilted during the day, rake them
into windrows before night. Turn