18 



FARMERS BULLETIN 836. 



When the crop is to be stacked, the stacks should be built in the 

 same way as stacks of grain; and when properly built they will shed 

 water as well as grain stacks. (Fig. 12.) It is well, however, to pro- 

 vide a covering, and if canvas is not available a top-dressing of green 

 grass or young sweet-clover plants will suffice. Sweet clover should 

 remain in the stack for three or four weeks, as it will require about that 

 time for the plants to pass through the sweat. A stack should always 

 be placed on high ground, where Water will not collect about the base, 

 and it is recommended that a foundation of some kind be provided, 



so that air may circu- 

 late beneath. A few 

 posts or rails will an- 

 swer this purpose very 

 well. 



THRASHING THE 



SWEET-CLOVER 



SEED CROP. 



Two methods are in 

 general use for thrash- 

 ing the sweet-clover 

 seed crop. The seed 

 may be flailed from 

 the plants, or it may 

 be removed by a grain 

 separator or a clover 

 huller. 



FLAILING THE SEED. 



Much of the sweet- 

 clover seed harvested 

 in the South is flailed 

 from the plants. This 

 method is necessarily 

 slow and does not hull 

 the seed. It is practicable, therefore, only in regions where the neces- 

 sary machinery for hulling the seed crop is not available or where the 

 acreage to be thrashed is very limited. One advantage of thrashing 

 the seed in this manner is that the straw is left in the field, where it 

 will add much organic matter to the soil. 



When the seed is to be flailed, the crop ordinarily is cut with a 

 scythe or mowing machine and the plants raked into piles or wind- 

 rows. If only small areas are to be harvested in this manner, a can- 

 vas or tarpaulin may be spread on the ground beside a windrow or 

 pile and several forkfuls of sweet clover pitched on the canvas, where 

 the seed may be removed from the plants by striking them a few 



FIG. 12. A stack of sweet clover. 



