the canners' leading variety unless it is superseded by some other more desirable smooth green-seeded pea.

The wrinkled varieties are by no means so well fixed in their relative positions as is the Alaska. There is probably a tendency toward a relative increase of wrinkled peas as a group in competition with the Alaska variety. This is apt to occur as the consuming public become better educated as to quality in canned peas. The varieties listed in the Horsford group are very closely related and may trace to the same original stock.

Before the advent of the viner, many other varieties were grown, such as the Telephone, White Marrow fat, and Kentish Invicta. The Kentish Invicta has been replaced by the Alaska, and the other two varieties mentioned were too long in vine and ripened through too long a season and so have dropped out.

The question is sometimes raised why some of the green-seeded, white-flowered varieties of field peas would not make good canning sorts. The varieties most frequently suggested for this purpose are the Prussian Blue and Blue Bell, these two being almost identical. The answer is easily given. They do not have any of the advantages of the Alaska for present-day processes. They would be too late for the southern tier of States, southern Illinois to Delaware, and would shorten the season for a successional crop on the same ground. They do not mature their crop all together, so that they would have all stages from blossoms to dry peas on the plants at the same time. This would give an unsatisfactory crop of peas, since they would be hard to grade. Moreover, for the States from Wisconsin to New York they would not extend the canning season, but would mature with the more valuable wrinkled varieties. Thus they lack some of the main characteristics which make the Alaska a desirable canning sort. It is difficult to see any reason for attempting to grow these varieties for canning anywhere.

SEED-PEA GROWING.

The production of seed peas for the canning and market-garden trade is probably the largest seed-growing enterprise in the United States. It has a very high crop risk and has been very migratory.

It began in Canada, and New York later became the center of the industry, which steadily moved westward through Michigan into Wisconsin. That State for a long time was the main region for seed peas and is still an important producer. From Wisconsin, the industry has continued to move westward, and nearly every region where peas might be grown, irrigated or not, either is now producing seed peas or their cultivation has been abandoned after trial. California is one of the most recent regions to be used for growing seed peas.

They are grown there as a winter crop. The larger seed-growing companies are searching continually for new regions. The most certain prediction for the next 20 years of the pea-seed industry would be that a number of regions at present unthought of for the purpose will be growing seed peas. Though not a sure crop in any region, it is more certain under irrigation than elsewhere. The considerations which have caused all this movement involved the disease, insect, and economic relations of the crop.

The seed-growing industry has always been confined to northern latitudes or high altitudes. The main western regions now being used are the Bitter Root Valley and the Gallatin Valley in Montana, the Upper Snake River Valley of Idaho, the Palouse region of eastern Washington and western Idaho, and the regions about Sacra

1

FIG. 1.-A small crew of seven men roguing a field of peas sown with a grain drill. The foreman is back of the line, where he can find rogues missed by the men.

mento and Half Moon Bay in California. Seed peas have been grown for a number of years on the mainland bordering Puget Sound and on the islands of that sound, but because of the moist climate and consequent difficulty of curing the crop in occasional years the industry has not increased there. This is also an important field-pea region, and there is consequently danger of undesirable mixture.

In Wisconsin, the peninsula between Lake Michigan and Green Bay has been a very important producing center.

Peas for seed are sown with a grain drill (fig. 1), whether for dry land or irrigation farming, except certain of the more dwarf garden varieties, which are sown in rows for cultivation (fig. 2). Irrigation when the peas are drilled is by furrows, as for wheat, these furrows being planned to take advantage of the slope.

Peas are often grown by seedsmen for two or three years or even longer on the same fields with increasingly good results, but there is serious danger in this case of disastrous diseases.

While there is not at hand much exact evidence, it seems doubtful whether the irrigation of a seed crop has any effect on the canners' crop of peas grown therefrom.

In estimating the size of his plantings, a seedsman is in the habit of counting on a fivefold return only. This small return is often exceeded, but it is too high for the crop from whole regions in occasional years of low return. The seedsman sows about 3 bushels of

FIG. 2. A field of short-vined peas grown for seed and planted in rows for intercultivation. Harvesting and the thrashing of small stocks are in progress.

peas per acre, giving him a return of 15 bushels, of which 3 must be kept for stock seed, leaving him 12 bushels to sell. The eastern grower for the canner plants 4 or 5 bushels per acre, so that the average seedsman's acre of peas will supply not more than 3 acres for the cannery.

A similar computation based on average conditions for the two other important canning crops, sweet corn and tomatoes, would be as follows: An acre of seed sweet corn yielding 40 bushels would provide seed for 160 acres of canning crops, and similarly an acre of tomatoes yielding 100 pounds of seed would produce sufficient seed to plant 1,600 acres in canning crops. The above ratio of increase clearly indicates the relation of the seed crop to the canning crop which must be maintained in order that the important food output of canned peas may be produced.

MIXTURES AND ROGUES.

To make an acceptable stock for the grower, peas must be uniform, and the more nearly all the plants of any lot approach the type of the variety the better and the more salable the strain will be. Seedsmen must guard this uniformity from various dangers, some of which are as follows: (1) Warehouse mixture. There should be little excuse for this, yet it takes great vigilance to prevent varieties from being mixed in thrashing and warehouse machinery when many varieties are being handled. (2) Volunteer plants. If field peas have been grown on a piece of land, seed will often lie in the soil over winter and will appear as a volunteer crop in a following crop of seed peas. This may occur even if one or more crops of small grain have intervened between the crop of field peas and the seed peas, as the volunteer peas will grow, ripen, and increase with the grain. The wrinkled varieties of peas will rarely live over winter in this way. Because of the danger of volunteers from the hardy sorts, careful seedsmen hesitate to plant seed peas for cannery purposes in regions where large acreages of field peas are grown. (3) The most difficult mixtures to control are those spoken of as rogues. Often rogues are degenerate in character and have at least the appearance of being a return toward an unimproved type of pea. Not all varieties are equally liable to produce rogues, and some varieties rarely show them. To the seedsman the term "rogue" often refers to any undesirable type found growing in his fields, and the process of removing these plants is called "roguing." These terms are applied to other seed crops as well as peas. Usually seedsmen distinguish between mixtures of recognizable varieties and rogues. "Rogue" has been used in technical publications in England and in this country to indicate a particular degenerate type of pea, called by American seedsmen "rabbit-ear rogues." Rogues, then, may be degenerate peas of uncertain origin, reversions to type, or crosses. Field crossing in peas is very rare under normal conditions, though instances have been reported where such crossing has seemed to be considerable. The danger from natural crossing is usually disregarded by seedsmen. Roguing, or the removal of aberrant plants from a stock, must be done when the particular variation being sought for can be most plainly seen. This basis of rejection may depend on the vigor of the plant; its habit, whether branching or not; the shape, size, or color of the leaf; the color of the blossom; and the size, shape, or curvature of the pod or whether the pods are produced singly or in pairs on the blossom stems. Rabbit-ear rogues are found in some of the most highly developed wrinkled peas and have much smaller, narrower stipules and leaves than the varieties in which they occur. These have been studied in

England and America, and it has been found that a plant which has once become such a rogue apparently never reproduces the type of the parent variety.

The time when roguing can best be done will vary. Some rogues can be seen best when the plants are small; others only when the crop is ripening or at some stage between these two conditions. Some rogues will be readily seen, and others will require long experience to find. The most difficult of all rogues to remove is probably the one which only differs in pod characters. Some crops must be rogued at two different times.

As might be supposed, not every laborer can make a satisfactory member of a roguing gang, since close observation and an ability to see very slight differences in plant characters are required. Where possible, men who have worked at roguing for more than one season are engaged. Recently, such experienced men have been very difficult to obtain.

A roguing gang usually consists of 12 to 15 men, under a foreman. (See fig. 1.) A 15-man crew is arranged for work as follows: Twelve of the men are placed in line, so that when their arms are extended the finger tips of adjoining men will touch. They proceed straight across the field with stakes as guides, keeping the proper distance apart. Two of the most experienced men are placed in a second line, one to follow each six men in the front line and to get any rogues which they miss. Lastly, the foreman ranges back of the whole gang, advising and explaining what is to be pulled, and removing any rogues he can find. Sometimes the gangs can only work with the sun at their backs, so as to get the best lighting. When pulled, these rogues are carried out of the field, and are preferably fed to stock, so as to prevent any chance of their being returned. In work requiring the most care, a gang of 15 men can only be counted on to cover 15 acres a day.

There is also another resource left to the seedsman for purifying his seed stocks. This is his warehouse machinery. Sieves in a fanning mill may be used to separate peas too large or too small for the variety, and any variation which shows in discernible seed characters may be picked out on the picking table.

WHAT TO ROGUE.

The most careful seedsman will put his main emphasis on his stock seed, keeping that as pure as his best vigilance can make it. Then, if there are no volunteers to be pulled out, it is not necessary to go over fields the seed of which he expects to sell. Indeed, if he attempts to rogue his whole commercial planting there will be at least a tendency toward lax roguing on his stocks, and if his commercial plantings really require roguing it shows lack of care in han