18 BULLETIN 876, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
or shed. Hay wagons may be used for hauling, but they should be. 
provided with a canvas in the bottom of the rack to catch the seed 
which falls. For large-scale operations a special wagon box, some- 
what like the header bed used in western wheat fields, is constructed 
from matched lumber and mounted on a low-wheel truck or on skids. 
The box is made large enough to hold 14 or 2 tons of grain, but should 
not be so large as to be cumbersome, a convenient size being 16 feet 
long, 6 feet wide, and 24 feet deep. Such an outfit permits the rapid 
handling of the crop, and saves several bushels of seed in the course 
of aday. The bundles are thrown into the box with 4-tine header or 
barley forks, with which the bundles are more quickly and cleanly 
handled than with ordinary hayforks. 
As the self-rake reaper is not a common implement on most farms, 
a large percentage of the hairy-vetch seed crop is harvested with grain 
binders. The binder shatters much more seed than the reaper, owing 
to the crushing and beating action of the elevators and packers. 
Frequently one-quarter or more of the pods are empty before the bun- 
dles reach the ground. Some of the seed which is thus thrashed out 
-accumulates under the aprons of the machine and can be saved, but 
most of itis wasted. Nospecial apparatus has been devised for saving 
this seed, but it would seem to be well worth while to have the 
binders equipped with pans under the elevators and binder deck, 
similar to those used in harvesting sweet-clover seed. From the 
appearance of the bundles as they leave the machine, it seems safe to 
say that the yield of every field harvested with a binder could be 20 to 
50 per cent larger if these inexpensive attachments were used. 
When cut with a binder the bundles of hairy vetch and rye are 
usually set up in shocks the same as is done with grain, although 
this is not necessary if the crop is thoroughly ripe and dry. The 
shocks are not made long and narrow, as is the case with oats, but 
large and compact, in order to reduce the outer surface, where the 
pods would dry rapidly and shatter. The length of time the shocks 
should remain in the field depends on the ripeness of the crop and 
the condition of the weather, but seldom should exceed three or four 
days. 
THRASHING. 
Hairy-vetch seed is thrashed with any ordinary grain separator and 
presents no special difficulties if the vines are dry. Mixed rye and 
hairy vetch is run through the machine in the ordinary manner, 
usually without any adjustment of the cylinder or of the screens. 
A little care must be taken that the machine is not run too rapidly, 
as the hairy-vetch seeds are apt to crack and split, especially in dry 
weather or when the seeds are dead ripe. A good thrasherman, of 
3 These pans are illustrated and described in Farmers’ Bulletin 83€, entitled ‘“Sweet Clover: Harvesting _ 
and Thrashing the Seed Crop.’’ Copies of this bulletin can be obtained free upon application to the Division 
of Publications, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. 
5 aS ji 
