The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-05-21
Plant Cow Peas.

Plant Cow Peas.
 Southern Cultivator.
 We often talk of our natural ad- vantages. and yet these very best gifts ot the gods" are the very ones most ignored and least appreciated. We do not fully appreciate health until its blessings are gone. Pure water and air. are taken as a matter of no con- sequence, until the fearful results of their being violated come upon us. Heaven has indeed been generous to the South. All men speak eloquently of our great monopoly of cotton" and 1t is indeed a wondrous money maker. Yet we have but recently seen our whole people groan under this very monopoly; and on account of receiving only half pay for It's production, many of our farmers driven either into bank ruptcy or to the cities. Then cotton, on account of the clean culture necessary to its production, Is an exhaustive crop, to our soil. In consequence many a Southern hill that should be r0bed in verdure. Is now scanned with gullies and millions ol galled spots are left as blot upon our landscape to tell the tale. That portion of our Southland that still responds to culture is taxed more than tithe to pay the enormous fertilizer bills we are an nually forced to make, that we may en-
 
 is all our work,-it was never Heav- ems plan. Nature, in her kindness, would have foretold such results, had her children been attentive to her teach ings. She gave us a twin monopily, and intended that the-wondrous-easy growing, nitrogen gathering, soll-re- storing-animal-fe Qegmue, the cow-pea, should receive equally the attention devoted to cotton. It was her plan that the cowpea should produce the fertility necessary to the best pro- duction of her sister, cotton. For over one hundred years, we have known something of the value of the cow-pe but we were too busy in our active pursuit of the fleecy staple. to give the cow-pea the consideration it de- served, and which would have resulted in an untold blessing to our soil and to ourselves. Like the children of Israel, we have gone astray after false godg; we preferred to listen to the oily talks of the cotton speeulator and guano dealer, who were laying heavy tribute upon the labor of our lands; to the still small voice" of Nature, who would have wooed us to the ways Of wisdom and independence. Farmers, wake up and go to doing. The cow pea is the easiest crop to grow that you can plant and one of the very best The pea is fine food for man and all your farm animals. The vines and the roots make one of the very finest hays for all your stock; and the vines and the roots form one of the cheapest fer tiIizers you can return to your soil. Our advice is to grow peas; feed your stock with the peas and vines and return the manure to your soil We figure if in this way, one ton of peavine hay fed to cattle Is worth. as food and manure. a least fifteen dollars farmer should want all in any product which he rais- es that there is in 1t for him. and hence should feed his pesvines. But if he does not care to keep so many cat tie. the peavines and roots. after tbe peas are gathered for reseediug, are worth seven and half dollars per ton as manure to, the land. when plow"d under. While 1t Is better to have the fifteen dollars. it is worse than folly to lose the seven and a half Any farm CT can grow a ton of peavines cheaper than he can huy a 200- pound sack of Euano. We meet men every day. who