A tin pan or some other receptacle should be placed at the lower end of the header elevator in order to save the seed which otherwise would be lost at that place.
The plants are carried into header wagons or barges in the same way as grain. When a heavy crop is cut it will be necessary to have two men in the barge to handle the plants. The floor of the header wagon should be made perfectly tight, or it should be covered with a canvas or tarpaulin, so as to save the seed pods which shatter.
When the crop is cut at the proper stage it may be placed directly in stacks or ricks without danger of heating or molding, provided the ricks are covered or topped with some material which will shed water and are built upon a foundation, so that air may circulate under them. Native grass or green sweet-clover plants of the first year's crop will serve very nicely for topping the stacks.
It is the custom of some people to place the barge loads close together in individual stacks so located that they may be hauled quickly and easily to the thrashing machine. On other farms enough barge loads are placed together to make a rick approximately 10 by 10 by 40 feet in size. When each barge load is placed in a separate stack it is necessary to load the plants again, so as to haul them to the thrashing machine. The shattering of seed pods and the extra labor caused by reloading and by hauling the plants may be avoided for the most part by placing the crop in ricks large enough for a day's thrashing. It is good practice to place such ricks in pairs sufficiently close together for both to be pitched directly to the feeder of the machine. When this method is employed two days' thrashing may be done without moving the machine.
The header binder, consisting of an attachment placed upon the header to bind the cut plants, has been used successfully in cutting the sweet-clover seed crop.
THE CORN HARVESTER.
Corn harvesters are proving to be efficient machines for cutting sweet clover which has made a growth too large to be cut with a grain binder. Even when the field has been seeded broadcast a 3-foot swath may be cut with the corn harvester, provided the gathering or divider points are extended to collect the plants. This may be done by fastening to each point a piece of wood or iron about 18 inches long. When a corn binder is used no more seed is lost from shattering than when an ordinary grain harvester is employed, unless the later is equipped with special pans and extensions, for the reason, primarily, that the portions of the plants which produce most of the seed extend above the gathering or divider boards and are not crushed. When a 5-foot or larger growth is cut with a corn binder, the plants are tied below the seed-bearing branches.
In the semiarid sections of the country a limited quantity of sweet clover is planted in rows for both forage and seed production. In such a case the seed may be harvested with a corn binder. ([Fig. 11.])
Fig. 11.—Cutting sweet clover for seed with a corn harvester. This field had been seeded in 30-inch rows.