October, 1908. J 



351 



Edible Products. 



made for handling. The grower then 

 turns over the responsibility of market- 

 ing entirely to another person. Tlie 

 system possesses no advantages for the 

 person who leels equal to the task of 

 marketing his OAvn fruit. — Agricultural 

 Experiment Station, Florida : Bulletin 

 No. 84, March, 1906. 



COWPEAS. 



By H. T. Nielson, 

 Scientific Assistant, Forage Crop Investi- 

 gation Bureau of Plant Industry. 



(Concluded from page 



Mowing and Thrashing. 



Cow peas for seed production are 

 quite satisfactorily harvested with a 

 mower. A bunching attachment has 

 been used with excellent results. This 

 gets the vines out of tlie way of the 

 team, thus avoiding considerable loss of 

 peas through trampling and crushing 

 by the mower wheels. It also leaves 

 the vines in a more desirable shape for 

 curing, they being rolled into small 

 windrows. The self -rake reaper is a very 

 satisfactory machine for mowing cow- 

 peas for seed, accomplishing even better 

 results than the buncher on a mower, 

 as the vines are left in bunches of very 

 convenient size for curing and handling. 



The bean harvester has been given 

 careful trial in harvesting cowpeas for 

 seed production, but it is not very satis- 

 factory. Viny peas catch on parts of 

 the machine and drag badly. There is 

 also likely to be much soil worked into 

 the vines, making the further handling 

 difficult and disagreeable. 



For seed production cowpeas should 

 be allowed to mature a greater percent- 

 age of pods than when cut for hay. 

 Half or more should be ripe before mow- 

 ing, even at the expense of losing a part 

 of the foliage. The vines should then be 

 allowed to cure and become thoroughly 

 dry, after which the thrashing may be 

 done. The curing and drying may be 

 done in the swath, cock, stack, or barn, 

 as desired, weather conditions largely 

 determining the method to be pursued. 

 The hay or straw is of better quality if 

 the curing and drying are done in the 

 stack or barn, though, of course, the 

 amount of work required is greater. It 

 is a common belief that weevils do much 

 less damage to seeds in the pods than 

 to the thrashed seeds. On this account 

 some giowers store their crop and 

 thrash it late, in the winter or early in 



the spring. However, the unthrashed 

 material require? much space for 

 storage, and there is no effective way of 

 combating the insects, while in clean 

 stored seed all insect life is readily des- 

 troyed by treatment with carbon bi- 

 sulphide.* 



Cowpeas may be thrashed with an 

 ordinary grain thrasher. In this case 

 the riddles are adjusted for cowpeas and 

 satisfactory screens are provided. The 

 most essential point in thrashing cow- 

 peas is to maintain a low and even speed 

 of the cylinder, 300 to 400 revolutions 

 per minute, while the rest of the machine 

 should be adjusted to run at least as 

 fast as for thrashing wheat or oats. 

 Some operators prefer to have a greater 

 clearance between the cylinder and con- 

 cave spikes than for grain thrashing, 

 Avhile others do not think this an advan- 

 tage. While expert operators sometimes 

 do very satisfactory work with an ordin- 

 ary grain separator, there are three 

 important difficulties encountered; (I) 

 Too many of the pods pass through with 

 the straw unopened ; (2) the machine is 

 easily choked by the tangled vines wrap- 

 ping around the cylinder ; and (3) the 

 percentage of cracked peas is usually 

 large. 



To overcome these difficulties several 

 modifications of thrashing machines 

 have been devised so as to adapt them 

 for handling cowpeas. One modifica- 

 tion which has been adopted in several 

 different machines is the use of two 

 cylinders. These cylinders are adjusted 

 to run at different speeds, the front one 

 slowly, about 300 revolutions per minute, 

 and the rear one more rapidly, about 

 450 revolutions per minute. Appar- 

 ently the only advantage gained by 

 two cyliuders over one is that a 

 smaller percentage of the unopened 

 pods pass through with the straw. The 

 use of two cylinders, however, results in 

 a somewhat larger percentage of cracked 

 peas. 



A second modification which has been 

 applied both to machines with one 

 cylinder and those with two is to 

 sharpen the spikes on the concaves or 

 on both the concaves and cylinders. 

 This sharpening means bringing the 

 face of the spike to as nearly a sharp 

 edge as can be done by ordinary 

 blacksmithiug. The beneficial effect of 

 sharpening the spikes is very marked, 

 as the vines pass through much more 

 readily, there is little tendency to wrap 

 around the cylinder, the amount of 



* For destroying weevils or preventing da- 

 mage by thern, see article on " Insects Injurious 

 to Beans and Peas,'', in the Yearbook of the 

 Department of Agriculture for 1898. 



