The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1898-02-12
Utilizing Waste Beans and Peas.


We seed dealers at the beginning of
every season have more or less of
beans and peas on our hands, whose
percentage of vegetation is too low to
make them of any value for seed pur-
poses, while they are too good to
throw away. These are usually util-
lied either by selling them to the
grocerymen, who handle them as col
ored beans, or to the farmers to feed
to sheep. In my own disposing of
them I have usually had them ground
and then fed to my cows and horses.
As beans are apt to cling to the mill
stones ESQ my miller tells me), they
are ground with two or three times
their bulk of corn. My horses will
not eat the bean meal, while the COWS
relish both bean and pea meal. Either
Of them is exceedingly rich feed, hav-
ing larger proportion of the flesh
forming constituent (protein) than
corn, while peas are also valuable for
fattening animals, as our Canadian
neighbors we'll know, though inferior
in this respect to corn. The fat made
from peas is whittier in color than that
from corn, as can be readily seen by
comparing Canada fattened turkeys
with those raised in the States. AS a
milk producer, bean meal is a great
| favorite with those dairymen who are
so fortunate as to be able to obtain
supply of old beans at as low a figure
as corn sells at. Like all very rich
foods, bean meal should be fed with
discretion; wise proportion, I incline
to believe, is but little more than can
be safely fed of cottonseed meal if the
feeder intends to keepa good COW.
There is another kind of bean and
pea waste which have been using
more or less for the last forty years
that I believe is but rarely used to
the best advantage; indeed, in many
cases it is not used at all, but con-
signed to the dung heap. I refer
to the waste from new beans and
peas. That of which I have spoken
previously is the waste caused by age,
the peas and beans being as sound as
ever, but simply too old; that which I
now speak of is the waste picked,
riddled and winnowed out of them to
make them in condition to be sold as
seed. This waste is made up of the
half beans and peas, and that small
grade which passes through the wires
of the sleeves used in racking and win
moving, and the sprouted, skin
cracked, rotten or otherwise defective
ones which are hand picked out. This
class of waste is confined mostly to
the growers and the wholesale dealers
in beans who contract for the crop
just as winnowed, and do their own
sorting and hand picking. Such
waste cannot be ground, as there is
too much foul stuff among it to make
it healthy food.
There are two ways by which it can
be utilized, by feeding to sheep just as
it is, leaving it to the instinct of the
animal to reject the rotten peas, or by
feeding it to pips, in which case it re-
9uires some manipulation. My first
experience in utilizing beans was with
the hand-picked waste of the wholesale
grocers. Purchasing about twenty
bushel of these at about twenty-five
cents bushel, I put the quantity
needed for the next days feeding in
soak over night, the next day cooked
them with quantity Of beef scrap un.
til they were soft, and while the mass
was scalding hot thickened 1t by stir.