GEO WING FIELD CROPS IN SUGAR-BEET DISTRICTS. 35 
at the side of the machine. On the return across the field another 
row of plants is thrown in this same row center, so that two rows 
of beans are together. These plants are usually just matured, and 
with few dry pods on the plants there is no loss of beans from shelling. 
(Figs. 28 and 29.) 
The beans are not allowed to stand in the windrow, but are 
bunched with a dump rake or shocked by hand the same day they 
are cut. The labor is lessened by shocking with a rake, but more 
beans are lost by shattering than where they are shocked with a 
fork. 
Approximately half the growers thrashed the beans from the 
field shocks without stacking. The best practice is to stack the 
beans unless one is able to have them thrashed early in the fall. 
Shocking b 
Where beans were stacked it was done in September with wagons 
and fork or with sleds, slings, and the derrick type of hay-stacking 
machinery. Some farmers found it necessary to turn the bean shocks 
before stacking or thrashing, so as to prevent discoloration of the 
beans. This slightly increased the shattering. Bean thrashing 
begins about September 1 and may continue into the winter months. 
The thrashers do not completely clean the beans for market, but 
the grower has this done at the warehouse. One man and two 
horses will cut 6 to 7 acres of beans in a day, and one man can shock 
about 2 acres in a 10-hour day. 
Approximately 90 per cent of the horse labor required in the 
production of the alfalfa crop is used in harvesting, and from 60 to 
80 per cent of the man labor. 
Three cuttings of alfalfa are usually made during the season. A 
very small percentage of the growers varied from this practice. 
The first cutting is made from June 15 to 20 at Greeley, the second 
