There is evidence that the cowpea can make a heavy growth in soils too deficient in lime for red clover, and it gained its first prominence in southern Ohio on land that was failing to grow clover. It is the plant of adversity as well as prosperity, adding rich organic matter to thin soils, but making its full returns under better conditions. Lime applications on acid soils give increase in yields. Its one absolute requirement is heat, and in a cold summer its northern limit is markedly depressed. Inoculation.--The inoculation of the soil with cowpea bacteria is necessary to best results in most regions new to the plant. Self-inoculation is quicker in the cowpea than in alfalfa because the vines carry some soil on them, and thus the dust in the seed crop may be rich in bacteria. However, most new seedings of the cowpea do not show a large number of nodules on the plant roots, and inoculation pays. In some cases it makes the difference between failure and success. Two hundred pounds of soil from an old field should be well harrowed into each acre of land when preparing for a cowpea seeding in a new region. The soils of the southern states contain the bacteria just as the states in the clover belt are supplied with clover bacteria. Fertilizers.--The light soils of Maryland, New Jersey, and the southern states are not naturally rich in phosphoric acid or potash. The cowpea can draw its nitrogen from the air, but on all thin land it pays to use 200 to 300 pounds of acid phosphate and 50 pounds of muriate of potash per acre for this crop which should have a luxuriant growth for the soil's benefit. Such use of fertilizers is more profitable than their use on the crop which follows. Harvesting with Livestock.--When the cowpea is made into hay, there is always danger that the most of the plant-food contained in it never will get back to the soil on account of a careless handling of the manure. The practice of pasturing with cows and hogs is excellent. The feed is rich, and the manure is left on the ground. There is a saving of labor. If the full fertilizing value is wanted for the soil, the crop should be plowed down. The trailing varieties form a tangled mass that cannot be handled by an ordinary breaking-plow, but a stalk-cutter, run in the direction the plow will follow, makes plowing possible. Pasturing with cattle and hogs sufficiently to reduce the growth so that a plow can be used is good practice.