VETCH 



VETCH 



659 



tons of green forage. At present it is little grown 

 in this country except as a winter crop in some 

 parts of the South, and in the states of Washing- 

 ton, Oregon and northern California. The Alabama 

 Station found that a successful crop of spring vetch 

 stocked the soil with the proper root tubercles for 

 hairy vetch. 



Stolley's vetch {Vieia Leavenworthii) is a prom- 

 ising annual legume that grows wild in central 

 and western Texas. It is useful for early grazing 

 in the spring, and stock are fond of it. It is also 

 valuable as a soil mulch and green-manure. It is 

 said to withstand drought. The leaves are small and 

 the stems trailing. 



Three other plants known as vetches are some- 

 times met with, and may here be mentioned. 

 A winter vetch {Lathyrus hirsutus) resembles spring 

 vetch in habit. It is grown in the South for late 

 fall and early spring pasturage. It is not hardy 

 north of Maryland. Its culture is much the same 

 as that of spring vetch. It is cut for hay when in 

 full bloom and cured as are cowpeas. Dakota vetch 

 {Lotus Americanus or Hosaekia) is used as native 

 pasturage and hay in the Northwest. It is a bushy 

 annual. Kidney vetch (Anthyllis Vulneraria) is a 

 perennial legume grown in Europe on thin lime- 

 stone soils. It gives little promise in this country. 

 [See page 308.] 



Culture. 



Seeding. — The three principal vetches all seed 

 fully, and if permitted to mature no reseeding of 

 the land is necessary. Maturing and reseeding of 

 hairy vetch is secured either by mowing the mixed 

 crop of vetch and small grain while the vetch is 

 still in the stage of early bloom, a slight second 

 growth then usually affording siiificient seed, or 

 by delaying the harvest until enough vetch seed 

 has matured, these seeds either shattering during 

 the mowing or being borne on parts of plants that 

 escape the mower. 



In the Gulf states, hairy vetch seeds and dies in 

 May, and the other agricultural species several 

 weeks earlier. Immediately, the land is planted in 

 other crops, as cowpeas, sorghum, sweet-potatoes, 

 and the vetch seeds remaining in the ground do 

 not sprout until August or September. Here the 

 seed of any of the agricultural species is sown 

 broadcast about September on land previously 

 plowed, using two to four pecks of vetch seed and 

 one bushel of beardless wheat or two bushels of 

 oats per acre. When intended exclusively for graz- 

 ing, one may use the above grains or rye. For 

 hay, the earliest varieties of beardless wheat or 

 Red Rust-proof oats are ready for mowing at the 

 same time as the vetch. Rye and beardless barley 

 mature before hairy vetch. Turf or grazing oats 

 are too late for making vetch-and-oat hay on poor 

 upland, but are suitable for this purpose when sown 

 early on good land with hairy vetch. 



When used for pasturage, vetch must not be so 

 closely grazed in May as to prohibit seed forma- 

 tion. It seeds freely, more than one thousand seeds 

 having been formed on a single thrifty plant. For 

 pasturage, vetch is also sown on land not specially 



prepared, for example among growing cotton 

 plants or where some cultivated crop has just been 

 removed. In this case it is sown alone or with 

 small grain and the seed covered by the use of a 

 one-horse cultivator. 



Inoculation. — In most of the southern states, the 

 vetches when first grown require inoculation for 

 best growth. This may be effected by means of 

 pure cultures from the laboratory or by the use of 

 one peck to one ton of soil from a field or garden 

 where the garden pea (Pisum) or any species of 

 vetch has recently grown thriftily and borne tuber- 

 cles. The seeds are dipped into water, into which 

 a small amount of this soil has been stirred, thus 

 depositing the nitrogen-fixing germs on at least a 

 part of them. Usually a more thorough inocula- 

 tion occurs when, in addition to this treatment of 

 the seed, one-fourth to one ton per acre of pulver- 

 ized inoculated soil is sown and promptly harrowed 

 in. By means of inoculation on poor land where 

 no vetch had previously been grown, the yield of 

 vetch in the South has often been quadrupled. 

 [Inoculation is discussed at length in Chapter XIII, 



Fig. 892. Spring vetch (Ftcia soMto). 



Vol. I, and under Legumes in the present volume. 

 Root nodules on the hairy vetch are pictured in 

 Fig. 592.] 



Harvesting. — Hairy, common, narrow-leaved 

 vetch and other species make fair yields of palat- 

 able and nutritious hay. The hay is cured in the 

 same way as alfalfa or clover. In the Gulf states 

 narrow-leaved vetch is ready to cut in April, and 

 hairy vetch early in May. Cutting should be done 

 three or four days before the vetch is in full 

 bloom. 



