Swather ??

As recent as 50 to 60 years ago, when many farms still had livestock, forages were still a big part of a farm operation, and seed for these forages was commonly grown. Big money winner on our place was red clover seed. First cutting for high quality hay, 2nd cutting went to seed.

To get the best quality seed, clover was put in a swath, then harvested with a pickup on the combine. The platform reel came off, the belt like pickup with rake teeth went on. It was slow, dirty work. But by putting it in the swath, the seed heads would dry down and green plants would dry down, such that the seed would thrash out.....plant stems and leaves would shatter and turn do dust, vs grinding it through green and wet and plugging up the combine.......then finding a way to get the high moisture green seed dried down too.

Worked for a guy in the late 70's who swathed his fescue for the same reason. He left the stems with seed heads on top of the cut stems and leaves.......and to harvest, would come back in a couple weeks when it was all dried down. He simply slipped the combine head under those......no pickup. Running the combine and seed cleaner, also dirty work. But gave you better seed and higher yield than waiting for fescue to go to seed and combine while standing. You then had the problem of getting it to dry down in the pile vs. out in the field.

Will occasionally see one of the pickup attachments for an AC All Crop. Was one on local craigslist a few weeks back.