LEGUMINOUS FORAGE CROPS 



207 



leaflets, an upper pair of tendrils and the midrib terminating 

 in a tendril. From one to two dozen bluish-purple flowers are 

 borne in racemes from the axils of the leaves. Three to six 

 of the flowers on each flower stalk produce pods one inch to 

 one and a half inches long and three-eighths to one- 

 half inch wide, in which are about six brown to 

 black, round to lens-shaped seeds variable in size, 

 but averaging about one-sixth of an inch in diam- 

 eter. When grown unsupported the stems grow 

 erect for about one foot, but as the plant increases 

 in length it becomes successively more and more 

 decumbent, so that when it is four feet in length, 

 three feet may be trailing upon the ground. The 

 vegetative portion of the plant, especially the newer 

 growth, is quite hairy, but this does not 

 prevent it from being relished by domes~ 

 tic animals. It produces a mass of fibrous roots 

 bearing an abundance of root-tubercles. Seed sown 

 at the Cornell Station on July 10 produced plants 

 whose roots on November i were traced to a depth 

 of 3 feet 8 inches in a tough, impervious clay. 1 



It is readily distinguished from the spring vetch 

 by the difference in the pods. In the spring vetch 

 the pods are less than a quarter of an inch wide, 

 from one and a half to two inches long, and are 

 usually black instead of straw-colored, as in the 

 winter vetch. The pods are about 8-seeded. The 

 vSeeds are about the same size as those of winter 

 vetch, but are blacker. 



242. Adaptation and Value. Although it will grow 

 better upon good than upon poor soil, winter vetch is especially 

 adapted in the farm economy as a winter or cover crop for 

 the improvement of poor sandy or gravelly soils. It is char- 



Spring 



vetch pod 

 Natural size 



*New York Cornell Sta. Bui. No. 198 (1902), p. 110. 



