Branches of trees are generally used for pea-stakes, when they can be obtained, and nothing can be better; but in lieu of them, strings are sometimes stretched between poles along 'Rae rows. Field pelts are sometimes sown alone, and allowed to support each other, where the soil is not very rich, but are very generally sown with beans, to which they cling.• Chalky and other calcareous soils are particularly suitable for peas, and in other soils a good field crop is seldom obtained unless the land has been well limed, or manured with gypsum, The free use of lime is supposed, however, to be unfavorable to the quality of garden peas intended to be used green.
Peas are cultivated to a considerable extent as a field crop in Britain, hut are best adapted to those districts in which the climate in least moist, the seeds being very apt to grow in the pods when moist weather prevails in autumn, by which the crop is injured or destroyed. The most productive kinds, being also in general the most bulky in straw, are very apt to lodge before the pods are filled, in wet seasons, and particularly on rich land. The crop is therefore rather a precarious one.
The haulm or straw of peas is used for feeding cattle; and for its sake, field peas are often reaped before they are quite ripe, great care being taken in stacking the straw to provide for ventilation, so that it may not heat. Pea haulm is more Litrogenous and more nutritious than hay.
Land to be sown with field peas should be very clean, and in particular free of couch grass; otherwise the mana7ement cannot prevent its becoming more foul whilst bearing the pea crop. The seed ought always to be sown in rows, twelve inches apart, or, in rich soils, eighteen or twenty inches apart. Various means are employed for sow ing peas; they are not unfrequently plowed under each second furrow; hut the seed ought not to be hurled More than four inches under the surface, and indeed that depth is too great; although many farmers sow their peas deeper than they otherwise would, to place them beyond reach of wood All possible means ought to be used to keep the land free of weeds. In some districts, peas are generally sown broadcast, which renders it impossible to do anything for this purpose. In the harvesting of peas, the
sheaves arc generally left loose till the haulm is somewhat dry. In drying, it shrinks very much. Broadcast peas are often cut with the scythe, and the harvesting of them is managed much as that of hay.— Winter field peas, a 'variety with very small seeds, are much cultivated in France and Germany, being sown in October, enduring the severest frosts without injury, and ripening very early.
Besides :Aug one of our most important agricultural and horticultural crops, peas are largely imported into Britain, the quantity sometimes reaching 120,000 quarters. We receive them front Denmark, Prussia, the Hans Towns, Holland, Morocco, United States, British North America; and of these, Denmark and our North American colonies scud the greater part. As an article of food, if not taken too often or without other food, peas are very valuable, as they contain a large percentage of casein, which is a flesh-forming principle. This principle in the pea has been called legumzn, but chemists are now generally agreed that it is identical with the casein of cheese. The following is an analysis of NO parts of pea meal: Water 14.1 Casein 23.4 • Starch . 37.0 Sugar 2.0 Gum 9.') Fat 2.0 Woody fibre.... 10.0 Mineral matter 2.5 100.0 The unripe peas of the garden varieties are amongst our most esteemed vegetables, and the meal of the white or yellow varieties used in soups is a highly nutritious and agreeable food.
A plant found on some parts of the shores of Britain, as well as of continental Europc and North America, and known as the SEA PEA, has been commonly referred to the genus pisum, and called P. maritimum, although botanists now generally refer it to lathyrus. It much resembles the common pea; has large reddish or purple Powers on many-flowered stalks; and its seeds have a disagreeable bitter taste. Its abundance on the sea coast at Orford, in Sussex, is said to have saved many persons from death by famine in 1555. The other species of pisum are few. But the name pea is often given to species of other papilionaceous genera. The SWEET PEA and EVERLASTING PeA are species of /athyrus. The CHICK PEA (q.v.) is a species of ricer.