The Canada Pea
Categories:
OTHER LEGUMES AND CEREAL CATCH CROPS
Among field peas there are many varieties, but the one
chiefly grown in the United States under the general name of the Canada
pea is the Golden Vine. It makes a green forage or hay that is rich in
protein. Usually it is grown with oats, giving a hay nearly as
nutritious as that of clover. The crop is adapted to cold latitudes,
and the planting should be made as early in the spring as possible.
Fall-plowing of the land
is to be advised on this account. A good
method of seeding is to drill in six pecks of the pea seed to a depth
of four inches, and then to drill in six pecks of oats.
The crop should be cut for hay when the oats are in the milk stage. At
this time the peas are forming pods. The hay is not easily made, but is
specially valuable for dairy cows.
There is no profitable place for the Canada pea in crop-rotations
farther south than the true oat-crop belt, except as a green-forage
crop. The soybean and red clover have greater usefulness in the center
of the corn belt.