184 THE YETCH CROP. 



merits successfully carried out, the seed crop is a very 

 precarious one. In unfavourable seasons a large propor- 

 tion of the produce is frequently destroyed by a few wet 

 days at the time the seed is being matured; while, again, 

 if everything goes on favourably, large returns are some- 

 times obtained. 



To insure good seed, the practice followed in the north, 

 of sowing vetches in the drill with the beans, is strongly 

 recommended. The same soils and general conditions of 

 growth -are equally suitable to both plants, which come 

 to maturity at about the same time; they are cut and 

 harvested together, and when thrashed out, the seeds are 

 readily separated by the riddle, while the addition of the 

 stems adds greatly to the fodder value of the bean straw. 

 The winter variety may be sown with the winter bean, 

 and the spring variety with the earlier varieties of the 

 ordinary beans. During their growth, the erect and stout 

 stem of the beans offers a ready support to the slender 

 vetch, which exhibits a luxuriance of growth and a power 

 of seed development very rarely met with, even in selected 

 plants, from a crop grown in the ordinary way. 



The diseases incidental to vetches have not excited 

 so much attention as those of our more regular rotation 

 crops. Mr. Berkeley, to whom we are mainly indebted 

 for most that we know of these very important matters, 

 in agriculture, tells us 1 that they are frequently much 

 injured by a parasitic fungoid plant peculiar to the vetch, 

 which is termed Botrytis vicice. The foliage and stem 

 are attacked by it, and gradually acquire a reddish or 

 reddish brown tinge; the general health and vigour of the 

 plant is immediately aifected, and the produce either par- 

 tially or wholly destroyed. In l*te-sown crops "mildew " 

 sometimes makes its appearance, when it is advisable to 

 cut or otherwise consume them as quickly as possible. 



1 Agri, Gaz., 1846, p. 226. 



