VETCH. Vicia spp. Leguminoste. Fig. 891, 892.
The vetches are of importance as cover-crops and as stock-feed. They have never become very popular, partly because of the low trailing habit, and partly because of the high price of the seed. Most of the seed is procured in Europe. When over two years old it sometimes germinates poorly.
Botanical characters.
The vetches, with few exceptions, are slender, climbing plants, bearing tendrils at or near the extremity of each pinnate leaf. They are herba ceous plants with weak stems, requiring the support of other plants, such as the small grains, when grown for hay. The numerous branches springing from a crown near the surface of the ground are usually two to five feet or more in length. Excep tions are found in the broad bean (Vicia Faba, which see) and Narbonne vetch (V. Narbonensis), which are erect, without tendrils, and with leaflets much larger than the typical vetches. The stipules are entire or Lail' sagittate, or variously notched or cleft, and in many species marked with a dark reddish spot. The flowers are axillary, few or in racemes, chiefly shades of pink, violet, purple and white. The style is slender and its summit is capped with a bunch of hairs. The calyx tube is somewhat oblique, obtuse at base, with teeth about equal. The flattish or roundish pod, containing numerous roundish seeds, bursts open when dry, splitting into two parts and spreading the seed widely. Britton gives the number of species as about 120, describes eleven as occurring in the northeastern part of North America, and notes that about twelve others occur in southern and western North America.
Species of vetches.
The three species of vetch most extensively employed in agriculture are hairy or sand vetch (Vicia villosa), common or smooth vetch, or spring tare ( V. saliva), and narrow-leaved vetch (V. angus tifidia). They are all annuals in the southern states, making their growth between September and May, and are treated either as winter or as summer crops as we go northward.
Hairy or sand vetch (V. villosa, Fig. 891) is dis tinguished by its dense coat of gray hairs covering every part of the plant and by its racemes crowded with numerous slender, deep purple flowers. The seeds are small and black, It has usually afforded larger amounts of forage than other 'well-known vetches.
Vicia saliva (Fig. 892) and V. angustifolia have larger, more spreading flowers, borne singly or in pairs ; on the stipules are dark, glandular spots. They differ in that the former has obovate or oblong leaflets, while the latter has longer and narrower leaflets. V. angustifolia has black seeds and pods. V. angustifolia is specially valuable by reason of its greater earliness.
Vicia saliva, the spring vetch, is native in Europe and western Asia, and was cultivated by the Romans. It was introduced into America a hundred years ago, and was formerly cultivated in the northeastern part of the United States, where in certain sections it has proved successful. It is used as a soiling crop in northern Europe and Great Britian. It may be sown at the rate of five to eight pecks of seed per acre in April or May, with a bushel of oats or rye as a nurse crop. An acre of vetch and oats yields ordinarily six to eight tons of green forage. At present it is little grown in this country except as a winter crop in some parts of the South, and in the states of Washing ton, Oregon and northern California. The Alabama Station found that a successful crop of spring vetch stocked the soil with the proper root tubercles for hairy vetch.
Stolley's vetch (T'ieia Leavenworthii) is a prom ising annual legume that grows wild in central and western Texas. It is useful for early grazing in the spring, and stock are fond of it. It is also valuable as a soil mulch and green-manure. It is said to withstand drought. The leaves are small and the stems trailing.
Three other plants known as vetches are some times met with, and may here be mentioned. A winter vetch (Lathyru.s hirsutus) resembles spring vetch in habit. It is grown in the South for late fall and early spring pasturage. It is not hardy north of Maryland. Its culture is much the same as that of spring vetch. It is cut for hay when in full bloom and cured as are cowpeas. Dakota vetch (Lotus America nus or Hosackia) is used as native pasturage and hay in the Northwest. It is a bushy annual. Kidney vetch (Anthyllis Vulneraria) is a perennial legume grown in Europe on thin lime stone soils. It gives little promise in this country. [See page 308.] Culture.