Show SOME PACTS AUOV3T BBATf CULTURES A member of a mercantile firm in S Center county Pa writes Some of our customers desire to cultivate field beans I am unable to find any work on their culture that will furnish a be Kinncr necessary information I notice no-tice quotations of the prices of various kinds of beans but cannot determine which is the best variety to grow here I would be glad to receive in formation forma-tion on the subject It seems to me that many would be glad to read practical prac-tical articles on the subject were they published Reply It is doubtful if there is any published work on bean culture In this country Industrious and wide inquiry has been made where sufch work would be likely to be kept for sale if on the market but without avail Inquiry In-quiry was extended to large bean Growers and handlers but none Jnw of any publicantion on the subject excepting ex-cepting a bulletin issutd by the New York Experiment station Applying there the director Dr Collier said it was only a bulletin on the anthraouose of the bean I have grown commercial I beans but not lately To be sure to let right I addressed the largest bean andler in Orleans scounty N Y a county that ships about 400000 bushels annually He says The marrow pea p beans are considered the most profitable profit-able to grow yn most lands Under favorable conditions twenty to thirty bushels an acre is a lair Yield They are planted with beast planters also with grain drills two and a half feet apart In rcvsr They are harvested with a machine that cuts tire stalks just below the surface of the ground drawn by horses They are cured In the sun and threshed with a steam machine There is a machine to sort them ont it docs it only partially and they have to be finished by hand pick hng rom this it is inferred that they are planted in drills I do not lie the system but that is perhaps the best that can be done where large quantities Quanti-ties are grown Beans are particularly susceptible to injury from a growth of weeds and for best yield these must be kept subdued by handboeiug and pulling When close together in drills there is lltla room to use the hoe I would prefer by far to plant them with a hand cornplanter four or five in a hill iifteen inches apart There Is much In preparing the ground It Js not advisable to apply barn manure the season the beans are planted for the reason that it will not Eet thoroughly incorporated with the a soil and when there happens to he an 1 excess of manure the beans Trill grow r rank and not ripen with the others > thl5 makes more handpicking and is 0 waste of beans as all must be bar vested together It Is of the utmost Jl2sortefl that all the soil of a field be just the same for Instance if part be sandy or gravelly and part clayey beans will not ripen so soon on the last and that makes a mess of the whole Job in fact a clay soil is not the kind to plant beans in they are not apt to ripen evenly or early enough to escape the usual September rains which often damage badly They should not be planted until the soil becomes thoroughly warm and that Is not until some time in June I am acquainted with the character of the soil In Center county It is mostly sandy and gravelly and excellent for this crop but the machine harvester could not be used on account of th numerous small stones If manure is to be applied this year let it be commercial com-mercial utilizers evenly distributed To harvest pull them by hand shake the dirt off and throw In small grar els such as can be turned by running the tines of a barley fork beneath When pulled get them dry as soon as possible and with the least handling and put them under cover at once They shell very easily Should they have to be turned three or four times on account of rains about half will shatter and be wasted Wherever stored before threshing the bottom should be tight to save the shelled beans unless indeed they be put on scaffolding over the barn floor which Is the best place They are easily threshed with a flail Care should be observed to get the right quality of seed Undoubtedly all bush beans originally ginally possessed the running habit and they snow a constant tendency to revert A neighbor has kept planting the same deed he has grown for several sev-eral years Last season ho had half an acre of the marrow pea beans and every hill had the trailing habit and rains nearly destroyed the entire crop 3e did not get a return of his seed Reliable seedsmen plant only selected seed oC such plants as evince no ten dency to revert and hence they charge a larger price and the goods are worth ft Beans for seed should always al-ways be selected in the fluid Since writing the foregoing a reply has come from a prominent seedsman of Philadelphia who writes In the vicinity of Centre county the large white marrow has been largely grown but of late years we have been recommending recom-mending the Burlingame medium as the very best for field purposes In Genesee county N T which is as you know quite a beangrowing section it Is grown by the hundreds of acres They plant in rows about three and a half feet apart or so far that they can be cultivated handily with a cut tivator I will add that I would not plant that distance apart It seems there would be a waste of use of some of the ground Beans ought to be near enough to shade nearly all the ground Some cultivators are made to be narrowed when necessary to about twenty inches Wide planting of beans has been discouraged here Galen Wilson Wil-son in New Tork Tribune Bean Culture in New Yorlc Reading your article on Field Beans in reply to a Chester county Pa inquiry I am moved to offer some corrections 1st Beans here are generally planted with special bean planters which deposit de-posit the seed in hills 10 inches apart in the row rows 28 inches distant from each other Fertilizer is deposited in drill at the usual rate of iso pounds per acre Twenty quarts of pea beans 3 pecks of mediums or 1 bushel of marrows is the usual quantity of seed Where maximum crops in yield and very clean culture are desired many plant in check rows 2G inches each way using the hand cornplanter or stabber stab-ber They require clean culture and good wheat soil and are harvested by the bean cutters of which there are several patterns manufactured at Caledonia Cale-donia N T Perry N Y and Brock port N T Small stone or even some large rocks do not interfere with their use more than with that of a plow Hand pulling has passed away being costly and shelling more beans than the cutters They are thrown In rows two rows of beans being carried together to-gether by the machine and forked out into piles to cure Some draw them together with a horserake first jv practice somewhat objected to as it leaves much dirt on the Vines As to profit I would advise your correspondent correspond-ent to go slow for the good prices this year are caused by great injury to the crop by early rains and late drought in New York while the crop in Michigan I Michi-gan a state which grows ci large proportion pro-portion of the pea and medium beans consumed was nearly ruined by the protracted drought thousands of acres not averaging two bushels per acre We also raise red kidney turtle soup red marrow yellow tye and contract garden beans A good fair yeild of marrow and all the larger beans is 16 bushels per acre of medium and pea 18 to 20 They are a very exhausting crop to the soil and should only be raised in a regular course on sod land and the soil well fed The vines are extrft good fodder for sheep and also cows If not fed too often and abundantly abundant-ly Beans have been a standard crop in this section for nearly forty years 1 4 B Pavllllon Genesae Co N Y I noticed an article in a recent number num-ber of The Tribune about raising beans I was brought up in Orleans County M Y and of course a good many changes have come In the line of bean raising since I left the county The pullers have come into play in the last twelve years and the first planters naa no fertilizer attachment Two men and a team will plant about one acre an hour They are planted in rows two and onehalf feet apart but not in drills as Mr Wilson Inferred In his article The planters plant two rows at a time with from three to five beans 3n a hill and the hills are one foot apart from centre to centre which leaves room between the hills to use a hoe If one wants to do so The kind commonly called medium is grown the most and three quarters of a bushel will plant an acre The planters are arranged so one can regulate the feed to plant more or less In using the planter follow the wheel track back when you turn around and that will bring all of the rows the same distance dis-tance apart Dont cultivate when the vines are wet The pullers are used only on quite stony ground but a man will pull an acre a day by hand I have pulled an I acre In half a day a good many days Now In pulling dont throw them In piles just as it happens for if you do it brings many pods on the ground Pull two rows at a time Pull them two or three hills in each hand and set them to your right on their tops with the roots up Put both handfuls together to-gether and then hardly any pods will be on the ground and if it rains on them the water runs right off You will see as you sro back and forth across the field and setting to the right each time that you will have four rows in a gavel and that leaves space to drive when you draw them In Take two rows on each side of the wagon Dont use a barley fork as you will shell them trying to get it under but a threelined fork will pick thorn up nicely aa the tines will pass through the roots very easily K you have a good time to harvest you will not have to handplek any for it Is the wet weather that colors the pods and thins the bean If you thresh with horses i e to tread them out horses without shoes aro preferable as shoes are apt to split the beanE E Steb bins Davenport N Y |