Page:The family kitchen gardener - containing plain and accurate descriptions of all the different species and varieties of culinary vegetables (IA familykitchengar56buis).pdf/99

 British Queen.—A wrinkled marrow Pea, of large size, and luscious flavor, grows five to six feet high; a new Pea of great excellence.

There are twenty or twenty-five other varieties of the Pea, but to go into a detail would be merely repeating what we have already said. They are generally mere varieties of those given, and so closely assimilated, that a name constitutes in most instances the only difference. The above list embraces varieties that become fit for the table in from six to ten weeks; and by repeated sowings, judiciously made, the garden will be supplied with Peas from May to frost. We believe that there is no vegetable in the catalogue so universally agreeable as the Pea. We have never heard any one say they could not eat well-cooked green Peas, and it should be an emulation to have them always at least in their season.

.—The soil in which an early crop of Peas is sown, should be light, dry, and well sheltered. I have had great success with early Peas, by sowing a row along the south or east side of a board fence. This is done as soon as the frost is out of the ground—in some seasons about the first of March, while in others as late as the 19th. Such was the Spring of 1846, yet I had Peas fit for the table on the 17th of May. This is no criterion of the earliness of the Pea, for in 1844 I sowed Peas on the 30th of April, which were fit for the table on the 10th of June, being within six weeks, and on heavy, loamy soil. Ground for Peas should be well manured the previous year; if it is heavily manured for the crop, it causes them to grow more to straw than seed. As soon as they are two inches high, draw earth to them, and when they have grown a few inches more, repeat it again. When they are eight or ten inches high, this earthing greatly protects the vines, and keeps the wind from driving them about. After the final earthing has been completed, stake them. The stakes, or branches more properly, should be of a fan-form, and put in