HAIRY-VETCH SEED PRODUCTION. 15 
is ready to cut. The advantage of early harvesting is the avoid- 
ance of a heavy loss of seed from shattering; the disadvantage is the 
ereater difficulty of harvesting. When cut early the vines are still 
green and tough, causing more or less trouble and annoyance in 
harvesting and thrashing. (Fig. 4.) Then, too, the seeds are not 
uniformly ripe, and although the green seeds ripen considerably in 
the stack, they do not become quite so black as normally ripened 
seed. Furthermore, so many of the seeds are entirely immature and 
worthless that the yield is often reduced 10 or 15 per cent by the time 
the crop is graded and ready for market. 
~ To avoid these difficulties many of the larger growers allow the 
crop to stand in the field until the pods are dead ripe and most of 
Fic. 4.—Harvesting semigreen hairy vetch with a mowing machine. Notethe tangled mass thatclings 
to the cutter bar. This difficulty can be largely over¢ome by the use ofa swather attachment. 
the leaves fallen. This does away with trouble in harvesting and 
improves the quality of the product. The loss of seed from shatter- 
ing, however, is often severe, sometimes exceeding 50 per cent. 
Rye, as arule, does not shatter badly and can be left in the field for 
a week or more after the seeds areripe. The hairy-vetch pods, how- 
ever, begin to split and curl almost as soon as they become dry, 
causing the seeds to fall to the ground at the slightest provocation. 
The advocates of late harvesting claim that the saving in labor more 
than compensates for the seed wasted and contend that the yield 
of good seed is as large as when the crop is harvested green and the 
seed graded. They further point out that the scattered seed pro- 
duces a volunteer crop the following winter and thus furnishes the only 
means by which a hairy-vetch seed crop can act as a soil improver. 
