506 FORAGE PLANTS AND THEIR CULTURE 



the corn is not cut close to the ground, heavy wooden 

 rakes are sometimes used to harvest cowpea vines. 



Another method of sowing cowpeas in corn is to plant 

 the seed close to the corn plants after the last cultivation 

 of that crop. The cowpea vines then climb up the corn 

 stalks and add materially to the amount of herbage. 

 When the mixture is thus grown, it is usually preserved 

 as silage. The cowpeas add considerably to the value 

 of the silage, but also increase somewhat the difficulty 

 of harvesting, as the vines bind the corn stalks together. 



617. Growing cowpeas for seed. The great bulk of 

 the cowpea seed grown in the United States is hand-picked. 

 When this is done, the vines should be picked over two 

 times in order to secure the maximum yields. Hand-pick- 

 ing, however, necessarily means a high price for the seed. 



The vines may be cut when half or more of the pods 

 are ripe. The riper the pods, the more easy the curing, 

 but the less valuable the residual straw for feed. The 

 mowing is very satisfactorily done with a self -rake reaper. 

 If this is not available, an ordinary mowing machine may 

 be used, but it is very desirable to use with it a bunching 

 attachment. Bean harvesters which cut the stems just 

 beneath the surface of the ground are very satisfactory in 

 sandy soils, but not in clay soils. 



In thrashing cowpeas with an ordinary grain separator 

 many of the seeds are cracked even when the speed of the 

 cylinders is much reduced. The vines too are inclined to 

 wrap about the cylinders, necessitating frequent stoppings. 

 The use of sharpened teeth on the cylinders or concaves 

 or both prevents this clogging, and also greatly reduces 

 the percentage of seeds cracked. 



618. Pollination. The cowpea is completely self- 

 fertile, flowers protected from insects setting pods normally. 



