406 



FIELD CROPS 



ground, and a bunch of grass or weeds is fastened to the 

 other after the cock is completed, to serve as protection from 

 rains. As soon as the vines are dry, they should be removed 

 carefully to the barn, where the beans may be flailed or 

 thrashed out. The modern bean thrasher removes the beans 

 much more quickly and cheaply than the flail. After the 

 beans are thrashed, they should be cleaned and graded, and 

 the good beans placed in sacks for marketing. The cull 

 / beans may then be used as feed for stock, 



while the marketable beans are an impor- 

 tant article of human diet. 



SWEET CLOVER 



522. Description. The white .sweet 

 clover, Melilotus alba, is a common road- 

 side plant quite generally over the United 

 States. It is a native of Europe, but is 

 widely naturalized in America. It closely 

 resembles alfalfa in habit of growth, but is 

 biennial, and the flowers are small, numer- 

 ous, and produced in long spikes. 



623. Importance. Sweet clover is not 

 generally cultivated, though in some sec- 

 s w eet tions of the South it is grown as a forage 

 crop and soil renovator. Its principal use 

 is for the latter purpose, as stock do not usually eat it 

 readily, and unless cut early for hay the stems are coarse 

 and woody. The feeding value of sweet clover is nearly 

 the same as that of alfalfa, but its lack of palatability 

 makes it much less valuable in actual practice. Soils on 

 which sweet clover thrives are usually adapted to alfalfa, 

 and as the same bacterium lives on the roots of both 

 plants, land on which sweet clover grows ordinarily does 



Fig. 126. 

 clover. 



