VETCH, a name applied to many species of leguminous herbs, in the genera Vicsa, Astra galue, Phaca, etc. They resemble pea-vines, and have pinnate, stipulate leaves and often climb over other plants by means of tendrils. The flowers are papilionaceous, of various colors, and the fruits are legumes or • pods, containing the seeds. The broad or Windsor bean of Europe is one of the vetch tribe (Viciti faint). The vetches are ntunerous, and many of them, especially the common tares (Vida saliva and V. hirstaa), are plants valuable either for grazing livestock, to cut for green fodder or for ensilage with corn. They are rich in nitrogen, and are important not, only for green manunng, or plowing under the soil so that by. decay this nitrogen tnay be released, but because the roots are covered with tuber cles that are the home of bacteria which have the power of assimilating free nitrogen from the soil, and converting it into such a form that it may be used by the host-plant If the roots are left to rot in the soil, the ground is enriched by this store of nitrogen, rendered available for other crops. Vetches, therefore, like other Leguminose, are valuable for poor lands, where they grow readily, and for restor ing nitrogen exhausted by grass-feeding plants. The American vetch (Vicki americana), with bluish flowers, grows in the moist soil of prairies and woodlands and is a valuable for age-plant for the West. Viejo caroliniana was highly regarded as a medicine by.the Cherokee
Indians, who used it for dyspepsia, cramp and rheumatic pains. Members of Astragelue, Phaca and allied genera, the Atnerican species of which are chiefly western or sub-arctic, are called milk vetches, from the notion that feeding upon thcm would increase the milk of goats.
Other leguminous plants known as vetches are the chickling vetch (Lathyrus sativus) grown in southern Europe for a forage-plant and for its edible seeds, which are said, how ever to produce paralysis of the lower limbs in men and animals. Some of the bitter vetches are included in the same genus, but one is Emmet ervilia. The vetchlings are also included in Lathyrus (q.v.). The bastard hatchet vetch is Bisemaa Pelecinus, with linear pods flattened transversely to the valve-edges, thus producing two sinuate false keels. The sensi tive joint-vetch, "Escitynomene virginica, has sensitive leaves, yellow flowers in axillary clus ters and jointed pods. • The kidney-vetch (Anthyllis vulneraria) has heads of flowers with permanent inflated calyces, in pairs at the ends of the branches; it was.formerly sup posed to have medicinal properties. The horse shoe vetch (Hippocrepis comosa) has horse shoe-shaped pods and is also called aunshoe the horse," from the magic property ascribed to it of taking the shoes off any nag that stepped upon it. Consult Farmers' Bulletins (Umted States Department of Agriculture).