AN EXPERIMENT.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2634, 15 September 1882, Page 3

AN EXPERIMENT.

Mr W. K. Gibbs, o£ Davie, Georgia, reports some experiments with peas and wheat extending over several years, which illustrates this. The soil was a dark gravelly one, with a yellow clay sub-soil, and was much worn. In 1870 1 2 the land had been cultivated in tobacco, corn and oats successively. In October, 1873, Mr Gibbs sowed the land in wheat. In June, 1874, ho harvested nine and a half-bushels of wheat to the acre. As soon as the wheat was out he sowed whippoorwill peas and ploughed them under; having picked enough peas to pay for the seed peas, seed wheat and ploughing. In 1875 Mr Gibbs harvested fourteen bushels of wheat. The season was better than the average, however. The same pea was sowed and ploughed under again. The vines were so large this time that a harrow had to be run ahead of the plough in the same direction. Twenty bushels of peas per acre were gather-, d this year, which were sold for one dollar per bushel the next summer. In June, 1876, seventeen and a half bushels of wheat per acre were harvested, the season being au average one. Peas sown and turned under as usual. In 1877, twenty-three bushels of wheat per acre were harvested. The season an average one. In the spring of 1877 clover seed were sown on the wheat and harrowed in with a light harrow. In 1878 the land was p etnred until late summer. In the fall, the stand of clover not being sufficient to leave over, it was turned under and the land put in wheat. No manure was used all this time, except onoe a little stable manure on a small plot that was much poorer than the rest. The increase seemed to be in the weight and length of the heads an.- not in the straw. Mr Gibbs prefers the whippoorwill pea, because it is earlier and matures more peas and vines before the time for ploughing, and because the vines grow in a way to be more easily turned under. If sowed in rows and cultivated the peas are just so much better.