over, it may be better,
in many instances, just to lift them with a fork with many tines, and
set them down easily again on ground which is not damp under them, like
unto that from which they have been removed.

Clover seed may be stored in the barn or stack, or it may be threshed
directly in the field or from the same. The labor involved in handling
the crop is less when it is threshed at once than by any other method,
but frequently at such a busy season it is not easily possible to secure
the labor required for this work. It is usually ready for being threshed
in two or three days after the crop has been cut, but when the weather
is fair it may remain in the field for as many weeks after being
harvested without any serious damage to the seed. If, however, the
straw, or "haulm," as it is more commonly called, is to be fed to live
stock, the more quickly that the threshing is done after harvesting, the
more valuable will the haulm be for such a use.

When stored in the barn or stack, it is common to defer threshing until
the advent of frosty weather, for the reason, first, that the seed is
then more easily separated from the chaff which encases it; and second,
that farm work is not then so pressing. When threshed in or directly
from the field, bright weather ought to be chosen for doing the work,
otherwise more or less of the seed will remain in the chaff.

In lifting the crop for threshing or for storage, much care should be
exercised, as the heads break off easily. The fork used in lifting it,
whether with iron or with wooden prongs, should have these long and so
numerous that in lifting the tines would go under rather than down
through the bunch to be lifted. The wagon rack should also be covered
with canvas, if all the seed is to be saved. If stored in stacks much
care should be used in making these, as the seed crop in the stack is
even more easily injured by rain than the hay crop. The covering of old
hay of some kind that will shed rain easily should be most carefully put
on.

Years ago the idea prevailed that clover seed could not be successfully
threshed until the straw had, in a sense, rotted in the field by lying
exposed in the same for several weeks. The introduction of improved
machinery has dispelled this idea. The seed is more commonly threshed by
a machine made purposely for threshing clover called a "clover huller."
The cylinder teeth used in it are much closer than in the ordinary grain
separator