. Cyclopedia of farm crops, a popular survey of crops and crop-making methods in the United States and Canada;. Farm produce; Agriculture. Fig. 889. Velvet beans. Natural Fig. 890. Velvet beans in Florida, with corn for support of Tines. 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,
. Cyclopedia of farm crops, a popular survey of crops and crop-making methods in the United States and Canada;. Farm produce; Agriculture. Fig. 889. Velvet beans. Natural Fig. 890. Velvet beans in Florida, with corn for support of Tines. 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. 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 4J to 6 per cent of fat, while meal made from the beans alone contains per cent of pro- tein and 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 cover-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 equ
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