Of late peas we have, after trying many sorts, fallen back
upon the old-fashioned Marrowfat, and now raise it exclusively. It will be fit for the table in from seventy to eighty days after planting. Knight’s tall marrowfat is recommended in Hovey’s Magazine (a standard authority), as of “delicious quality and producing throughout the whole season.” We have never had an opportunity of proving it.
We prefer buying our seed to raising it. In this region the pea-bug pierces every seed-pea, and, although the germ is not usually destroyed by this depredator, the seed is weakened, and the certainty of growth very much diminished. If one must plant buggy peas, let them have scalding water poured upon them and turned off again immediately. The bug will be destroyed and the pea not injured.
When peas are up they require but one or two hoeings, as they soon shade the ground so as to prevent weeds from growing. They should be well supplied with brush, strongly set in the ground. When peas are allowed to fall over, they become mildewed and rot. This also happens when the rows are planted so near together as to prevent free circulation of air.
When large quantities of peas are desired they should be sown broad-cast, at the rate of about three bushels to the acre—more rather than less. It leaves the land in fine tilth, smothering all weeds. Thirty bushels to the acre is a fair crop; but eighty-four, and eighty-eight, have been taken.
Autumn-planted Onions.—Onions for seed should be planted in October; and, like their more brilliant, but less perfumed, friends of the tulip and hyacinth connections, they will thoroughly root themselves during the autumn and mild winter weather, and be ready for early work, the moment the frost rises from the ground.