90 THE BOOK OF ALFALFA 



Another is that the seed pods at that season are not 

 usually so well filled and the proportion of fertile seeds 

 is less because the bees and other insects have not so 

 early in the season had time and opportunity to aid in 

 the poUenation. 



Cutting should be done when the greater proportion 

 of the seeds are hard, but not sufficiently ripe to shell. 

 At this stage a majority of the pods are turned a dark- 

 brown color and the seeds are fully developed. Fre- 

 quently the cutting can be raked into windrows after two 

 hours if the weather is drying, and in two or three hours 

 more put into cocks and let stand for twenty-four to 

 forty-eight hours, as the weather may justify. It should, 

 however, be well cured and thoroughly dry when put in 

 the stack, or there is danger of heating, and stack- 

 heating seriously injures the vitality of the seed. It is 

 not uncommon, if extremely ripe, to leave the cutting in 

 the swath only an hour or a half -hour, then stack, and let 

 stand for autumn or later threshing. If allowed to 

 stand in the stack for about thirty days, the entire mass 

 goes through a sweating and curing process which makes 

 the threshing easier, while less of the seed is left in the 

 straw than would be if it had not stack-cured. In western 

 Kansas many seed raisers cut their seed crop with a self- 

 binder, put the sheaves in shocks the same day and thresh 

 in about ten days, or put it into a stack to await a con- 

 venient threshing time. They claim to secure 20 per 

 cent more of the seed in this way than if they cut with 

 the ordinary mower. Others cut with a mower having 

 a dropper attachment which leaves the alfalfa in small 

 bunches at the will of the driver, in the center of the 



