10 BULLETIN 46, HAWAII EXPERIMENT STATION. 
leguminous seed crops is that its pods do not shatter their seeds even 
when they are roughly handled. 
Since the pigeon pea produces a stiff, woody stem, it has been 
found desirable to harvest not more than the upper third, or. at 
most, the upper half of the plant, unless the plants are very spindling 
and sparse, as they sometimes are on poor thin soils during a dry 
season. It has been the practice at Haiku to cut back about one- 
third in the first harvest and a third to a fourth in subsequent har- 
vests, depending upon the growth made by the plants. The stems 
in such cases do not exceed the thickness of a lead pencil, and they 
bear practically all the pods on the plant at that time. 
The greatest problem thus far encountered is in the mechanical 
part of the harvesting. No ordinary mowing or harvesting machine 
now on the market will handle the crop as it is being grown at pres- 
ent. A short-knifed wheat header, such as is used in harvesting 
wheat and barley in California, if especially strongly built, has been 
suggested as a practicable contrivance. The Haiku ranch, which 
has several hundred acres in pigeon peas, has had underway, with 
some likelihood of success, the modification of a modern corn har- 
vester. Doubtless, when the acreage becomes large enough, imple- 
ment manufacturers will become sufficiently interested to undertake 
the manufacture of a suitable implement. In the meantime, the most 
practical way thus far devised is to cut the stems by the use of the 
short, strong-bladed, Chinese grass hook, or sickle. The workman 
grasps a cluster of stems with his left hand and readily cuts through 
the stiff stems with a strong, swift, drawing motion of the sickle 
blade. The handful of fodder is then laid upon the cut surface of 
the plant from which it was just harvested. The plants thus serve 
as an admirable support for wilting of the fodder preparatory to 
loading it on the curing trucks or stacking or for holding the fresh- 
cut material for immediate gathering by the crew following the 
cutters. These temporary supports are usually about waist high. 
Loading the crop on the curing truck, or on wagons for haulage, 
presents another difficulty, and as now done by hand, is slow and 
uneconomical. The present methods of loading the green pigeon 
pea stems are shown in Plate III, figure 1. Bundles making an 
armful for a man weigh about 40 pounds. They can not be handled 
with a pitchfork because the mass does not well hold together. The 
California grain-header idea might help to solve this problem, since 
the crop as harvested would be elevated directly into the accompany- 
ing wagons. 
te te CURING. 
The most practical and efficient way to cure the crop is by means of 
portable curing trucks and stationary raised platforms, the latter 
built at convenient places in the field. Under this system, the mate- 
