The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1912-02-14
RAISING BEANS FOR PROFIT.
Methods Tried by Maine Farmer for
80 Years.

+. H. Morse of Waterford Me-, in the
American Cultivator. Another thing, the
cheapest time to hoe crop is before it
is planted. We try to prepare our land
very thoroughly for the bean crop. 1t
is not a crop that will overcome witch
grass, like corn. Most of our beans are
raised as part of regular rotation.
We are troubled very much with witch
grass, and we plant beans one or two
years with corn, until we get the witch
grass subdued. Instead of sowing grain
as our neighbors do and seeding down
in grain, we have planted beans and
seeded down with beans. That perhaps
| have had to give it up, for this year
we bought bean harvester, and that
tears the ground all to pieces.
As have said before, we try to give
ou ground very thorough preparation
We intend to get the witchgrass very
thoroughly conquered in the corn. Tn
planting beans we use two-horse plant
er. 1t is very Essential when you use
planter that the rows are straight
and an even distance apart, so that you
can use tools to cultivate them. On land
where the witchgrass and weeds have
been thoroughly enough subdued so that
you can use it, ! have found nothing
equal to the weeder to cultivate the
bean. 1t must be used with judgment.
1t would not do to go out some cool
morning and think you could kill the
weeds and not kill the beans, for the
beans would be brittle and you would
break them off. In the heat of the day
he, bao Will CD Ia
last summer we heightened out the regu. |
lar weeder head, so it would cover four
rows at a time. We cultivated the rows |
in that way until the plants were three
inches high, but found we would not |
be able to keep the beans clean in that |
way. The question was; would it do to
use the weeder? We examined that |
piece of beans, and much to my surprise /
beans that stood four inches high had |
roots Is inches long. found that prac-
tiealiy the roots met between the rows.
Then the question came up; How |
could We keep the weeds down and not
destroy so many roots as to hurt the
beans? If we do not have tool that I
will do the work, We make one. We
took our weeder and put piece of plank |
on ahead, then took the spring tooth |
from the American eultivator--they are /
not shaped like the regular spring teeth |
and put those on. Our rows were so
even we could put them on and run
over the rows and not disturb the beans.
Instead OF using the pointed teeth, we
turned down, and they scraped the sur
face of the ground and turned the witch
grass over, and the little teeth coming
on behind made it look smooth and light
and nice We found we could go over
three rows at time, if planted 3h
feet apart, as we plant it. II is slow
work going over one row at time. The
way we had this arranged, the weeder
teeth were held up somewhat behind,
and they barely scraped the surface
without going to any depth.
If you plant the yelloweyed beans
there will be white and black beans
With little practice you can tell them
by the growth. | go ahead Of the pull
ers and pull out all the black and white
beans. The yellow-eyed beans usually
stand upright. The black and white
beans that grow from the yellow eyes
tip over, and the pods that have the
black and white beans in them have a
white beans are very much more prolific
than the yellow eyes. II you keep plant
ing the seed of the beans as they grow,
IN a few years they viii go back to the
black and white beans, because they are
10 much more prolific, | cannot tell you
he percentage of black and white beans
we get now, but it is very small. think !
have selected seed in that way three
years. 1t is very encouraging to me to
see so much improvement in the crop
with that little bit of labor.
We let the beans stand until the leaves
ire about half off, when we cut them.
N that way they win dry off, and most
If the leaves will be cut off by the time
hey are put in the barn. If you have I
now fairly well ventilated, you can
itch them into the NOW without trou- J
lie. only do not tread them; do not
tand on them to pitch them back have /
TO stand on so they will not
'e trodden down, One year we had /
ute q large lot. | stood on them as
would NOV of hay, and when we y
anne to thresh them the beans had set
led down and we lost lot of them by
lildew and mold. :
IuItt years dkO TINS IAN we DougHt
bean-thresher. II is a very nice work
lg machine, but got too small size,
nd it does the work nicely II will
hresh them nicely and clean them up,
D that il YOU bought barrel of the e
cans you would say they were ready It
Dr. market. But we hand-pick them all e.
anyone is going into the raising OF L
cans to any extent, the thing to DO a.
'ould be for two or three to join to. ca
ether and buy a machine of some size. 3
nth this one of ours, with beans well u
He'd we can thresh three or four bush ~ y
Is an hour Last year | could do that =
lyself, without any help, but usually -
takes two This year we have more f
ines and find it pretty hard work for = =
yo to thresh more than that It is ~ =:
small machine run by gasoline. II Va y,
aves the fodder in fine shape. =,
| think the bean crop with us has -
cen very good about adapting itself to n
lie SOIL except for two years, when we
nd some light land in pasture that we =
-oke up. and they did not sem to pod
,ry well there. As they got ready to N
Il. the dry weather came on and upset
he filling. / think we only got about
J bushels to the acre. Our soil is what
e call gravelly loan. With the old
shioned yellow eyes it takes about
lree pecks of seeds TO the acre. Onr
tile thresher at that time cost SAG 80
sh in Minneapolis. The harvester we
ied is an attachment to the American r.