For seed production.—To secure a good crop of seed in the extreme South, the crop should be planted not later than the third week in April. Larger quantities of seed will be secured if the vines are given something to run on. An excellent method is to plant them with corn and cut the corn just below the bottom ear as soon as it is matured, leaving the lower part of the stalks as a support. It is not best to leave the whole length of the corn-stalks, as the vines climb over them and the weight of the growing pods will at last break them down. An other method which may be used in a limited way is to set small poles along the rows, ten or twelve feet high. The vines may be cut around the poles and these lifted with the vines attached in harvesting.
Harvesting.—From the nature of the growth, it can readily be understood that the velvet bean crop is one which cannot easily be converted into hay. It is best cut by means of a front-cut mowing machine. Each swath should be turned back with forks before the next one is cut. The best time to cut is when the pods are well formed, but before the beans begin to swell. The hay may be cured by the methods ordinarily used for cowpea hay.
Because of the difficulties of harvesting, many persons prefer to turn the cattle and hogs into the field and allow them to graze. In the mild fall and winter climate of the South this is a splendid way to handle the crop, and meat may be produced at a very low cost by this method.
Yield.
At the end of the growing season the ground is covered with a tangled mass of vines two or three feet deep. At a conservative estimate, the weight of green material will reach ten tons and the weight of dry hay three to four tons per acre. Under favorable conditions, a good yield of pods is eighty bushels, giving about forty bushels, or thereabouts, of shelled beans.
Uses.
As a stock-feed.—The velvet bean is rich in pro tein, and good hay contains about 8 per cent of protein with a nutritive ration of 1 to 6. Meal may be made from the beans and pods ground together. This meal contains 17 per cent of pro tein and to 6 per cent of fat, while meal made from the beans alone contains 22.6 per cent of pro tein and 6.6 per cent of fat. Both of these have
been placed on the market in a limited way. As will be noted from the above, the hay in itself is a fairly well-balanced ration. The meal from either beans or beans and pods together must be classed with the concentrated foods, and should not be fed without other more bulky substances having a wider nutritive ratio.
As a corcr-crop.—Velvet beans have been used extensively as a cover-crop in orange, peach and pecan orchards. On poor lands they are admirably adapted for this purpose, as they collect large amounts of nitrogen and provide a great quantity of vegetable matter. Only a narrow space between the tree rows should be planted and the plants must be watched to prevent their climbing into and injuring the trees. Trees are frequently badly broken if this precaution is neglected.
As a soil renovator.—As a soil renovator, the velvet bean, for the regions in which it may be grown, has few equals and no superiors. It is not attacked by the root-knot producing nematodes, nor is it subject to other diseases. It makes a very large growth of vegetable matter to be resolved into humus. On the basis of ten tons of green vines per acre, the crop contains 150 to 200 pounds of nitrogen with ten or twelve pounds in the roots alone. The nodules produced on the roots by the nitrogen-collecting bacteria are much larger than those found on the roots of our common legumes. They are brownish black in color, warty, broad, flat. and frequently measure an inch and a quarter across. The interior is greenish white or greenish pink in color.
As an ornamental.—The rapid growth and the large clean foliage of the velvet bean gives it dis tinct value as an annual ornamental covering for trellises and for porch screens. In fact, it was as an ornamental that the velvet bean was first used in this country.
Literature.
Bulletins Nos. 35 and 60, Florida Experiment Station ; Bulletins Nos. 104 and 120, Alabama Experiment Station ; Farmers' Bulletin, United States Department of Agriculture, Nos. 102 and 300 ; Hume, Citrus Fruits and Their Culture, pages 290-293 ; Shaw, Forage Crops, New York City.