CULTURAL PRINCIPLES — HARVEST 23 



work. Jt resembles the ordinary grain separator in 

 general makeup, but the distinctive differences are 

 large, knife-edge cylinder teeth and notched sharp- 

 edged concave teeth. He states that in tests which 

 included 200 bushels and represented eight varieties, 

 and with the vines in all degrees of toughness and 

 stages of curing, a surprisingly high percentage of 

 separation resulted. There are regular pea hullers 

 on the market that do fine work. 



In a small way peas can be effectively thrashed 

 on the barn floor with a flail or by stock being 

 turned in to tread the seed from the pods. ' In either 

 event a layer of pea vines is distributed on the floor 

 and contact of flail or stock with the pods causes 

 them to split open and free the seed. One or two 

 turnings of each layer is recommended. Later the 

 floor can be cleaned up and the product run through 

 a fanning mill. Old line farmers state that this 

 method of thrashing will result in far less breaking 

 of seed. 



Yields. — Naturally the yield of peas varies much, 

 running from five to 40 bushels to the acre. Zavitz 

 and Lochhead^ found that in setting peas at differ- 

 ent dates between April 18 and May 23, the average 

 yield for the former date was 21 bushels to the 

 acre, and for the latter nine bushels. There was an 

 average increased yield in 30 experiments of one 

 and one-third bushels to the acre from seeding peas 

 in hills rather than broadcasting. The same author- 

 ity reports a trial of 47 varieties of peas sown in 

 drills one link apart. Yields varied from 14^ bush- 

 els to 33 bushels to the acre. Chancellor matured 



' Ont. Agri. Col., Bui. 126. 



