122 FORAGE CROPS. 



of growth. When young, especially, the tendrils 

 hug the ground closely. They are tiny and spindling 

 at first, but after a time they grow with much vigor 

 (Fig. i6). On the cultivated plat grown at the 

 Minnesota University experiment station in 1897, 

 many of the plants produced each from eight to ten 

 runners, not a few of which reached the length of 

 eighteen to twenty feet. Each of the runners pro- 

 duced numerous tendrils, from, say, three to five feet 

 in length. These so intertwined that it was almost 

 impossible to pull away a single plant entire from 

 the surrounding mass. When well advanced in 

 growth the runners are tough and consequently hard 

 to pull asunder by the animals in eating them. 



Distribution. — The sand vetch is very hardy 

 and is therefore adapted to a wide range of distri- 

 bution. It is pretty certain that it may be grown 

 in any part of the United States, although only in 

 some localities will it be found more profitable than 

 the common vetch. Where it cannot endure the 

 cold of winter it will not be so profitable as when 

 grown under conditions the opposite. It cannot be 

 so profitably grown, therefore, in the northern states 

 as in those further south. It has never yet survived 

 the winter at the Minnesota University experiment 

 station, although the uneaten forage produced by it 

 has been injured less by severe frosts prior to the 

 falling of the snow than the forage produced by any 

 other plant grown at the station. It will doubtless 

 equal the common winter vetch in hardihood, and 

 therefore can be grown in latitudes adapted to the 

 growth of the former. It. should survive the win- 

 ters, speaking in a general way. in localities south of 

 the 40th parallel of north latitude, and also in some 



