The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1885-06-05
BEANS,
A Valuable Part of tho Regular Farm
Rotation.

Rotation.
Our climate is not favorable to peas,
which are apt to mildew with the heat,
but beans succeed very well, and the
fruit is always salable. Moreover, the
bean may be turned to good account as
food for stock, for which it furnishes
a most nutritious and heaIthful aliment,
although at first it is not eaten with
relish. After becoming used to it when
ground with bran and corn it is readily
eaten, and when thus mixed it forms a
perfect food, and containing a large
quantity of heterogeneous matter it is ex-
cellently well adapted for young and
growing animals. 1t differs but little
from the English bean in this respect.
and this grain is considered in that
country the most nutritious and health
full that is grown. We can not grow
the English bean, and the English can
not grow our bean, on account of eli
mate, and each must keep his own
variety. But we may well take an ex-
ample and hint from English farmers,
and give more attention to this useful
crop than we have done, as a stock
food
The prevalent idea that beans will
grow upon any soil, however poor il
may be, is mistake and an injury. 1t
is true that beans will grow; but grow.
ing alone is not what good farmef
wants. The largest possible crop is
what should be aimed at, and if an
English farmer can grow forty and fifty
bushels an acre of his beans so we ought
to be able to produce an equal quantity
of our beans. And we NAV, if we will
only take the same pains with the crop
as they do. The English method is to
summer fallow, to pillow in manure in
the fall, to apply bone dust or super
phosphate of lime in the spring, and to
cultivate the crop with horse hoe and
hand hoe with thoroughness. and by
this fitting of the soil to get full yield
of beans, and to follow it with large
crop of wheat. Here is just where we
should put this crop in our rotation,
and, so to speak, kill two birds with
one stone.
Our method of growing beans has
been to plant two rows together eight
inches apart, and put these double rows
twenty inches apart. These wider
rows only are cultivated, but the
surface is left flat and no ridges are
made by earthing up the beans. By
drilling in the seed three inches deep
the plants are sufficiently well rooted te
stand up firmly. A cultivator made
for the purpose, with spaces to straddle
two rows, the horse passing in the
middle row, works two spaces at once,
and after three workings the plants will
so shade the rows that weeds get nc
chance to grow. The variety we have
grown is the small pea bean. Recent
ly we have grown the white wax, which
yields very abundantly and affords in
the stalks and leaves an excellent fod-
der. The crop may be cut with q
mower or reaper and self-raker:
when the mower is used cloth apron
is fitted behind and boy following
rakes off the beans in a row, where
they are left to dry. When dry they
may be stacked in barrack or put in
the barn, but it is preferable to thrash
them as they come from the field We
have fed them to cows, finely ground
with an equal quantity of corn and as
much fine bran or coarse mill feed as oil
corn and beans together. and have
found the feed to be excellent for yield
of milk and product of butter. This
meal, too, makes the very best feed fol
calves, and if boiled well and the cruel
strained and thinned to the substance
of milk, with small quantity of sugar
and salt added. it makes the best sub
stitute for milk for weaned calves.
Beans contain a large quantity of a
heterogeneous substance called legumin,
which is identical with caseine in COM
position, and which can be curdled and
made into cheese, and this substance
replaces in the food made of it the
caseine of the milk, and so supplies
beautifully one of the greatest needs OF
the cali. N. Y. Times.