528 FIELD AND GARDEN PRODUCTS 



only one practicable where the peas are planted in corn, which is 

 a very common practice throughout the South The cowpeas are 

 planted at the last cultivation of the corn and are nearly always 

 ripe before frost The vines climb the corn stalks, so most of the 

 pods are well above ground, which greatly facilitates gathering 

 them. They are picked by hand into bags, and later flailed or run 

 through a pod huller. The cost of hand picking ranges from 40 

 to 75 cents a hundred pounds of pods, or the picker is given one- 

 third to one-half of the total quantity gathered. This method of 

 harvesting naturally makes the price of seed high. Fields grown 

 to cowpeas alone for seed production are often hand picked. The 

 yield of seed in such cases is as a rule much larger and a larger 

 number of pods can be picked in a day than when grown with 

 corn. 



Machine Picking. The scarcity of seed and the difficulty of 

 securing labor have resulted in the invention of several so-called 

 pea pickers. These machines are intended to gather the pods from 

 the vines in the field. The peas must be planted in rows for the 

 most successful operation of a pea picker, and the entire plant 

 must be ripe and dry before the machine will do satisfactory work. 



Mowing and Thrashing. Cowpeas for seed production are 

 quite satisfactorily harvested with a mower. A bunching attach- 

 ment has been used with excellent results. This gets the vines out 

 of the way of the team, thus avoiding considerable loss of peas 

 through trampling and crushing by the mower wheels. It also 

 leaves the vines in a more desirable shape for curing, they being 

 rolled into small windrows. The self-rake reaper is a very satisfac- 

 tory machine for mowing cowpeas for seed, accomplishing even 

 better results than the buncher on a mower, as the vines are left in 

 bunches of very convenient size for curing and handling. 



The bean harvester has been given careful trial in harvesting 

 cowpeas for seed production, but it is not very satisfactory. Viny 

 peas catch on parts of the machine and drag badly. There is also 

 likely to be much soil worked into the vines, making the further 

 handling difficult and disagreeable. 



For seed production cowpeas should be allowed to mature a 

 greater percentage of pods than when cut for hay. Half or more 

 should be ripe before mowing, even at the expense of losing a part 

 of the foliage. The vines should then be allowed to cure and be- 

 come thoroughly dry, after which the thrashing may be done. The 

 curing and drying may be done in the swath, cock, stack, or barn, 

 as desired, weather conditions largely determining the method to 

 be pursued. The hay or straw is of better quality if the curing 

 and drying are done in the stack or barn, though, of course, the 

 amount of work required is greater. It is a common belief that 

 weevils do much less damage to seeds in the pods than to the 

 thrashed seeds. On this account some growers store their crop and 

 thrash it late in the winter or early in the spring. However, the 

 unthrashed material requires much space for storage, and there is 

 no effective way of combating the insects, while in clean stored 



