Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1919-03-30
VELVET BEAN IS MOST VALUABLE CROP THAT HAS BEEN INTRODUCED
 IN SOUTH FOR FIFTY YEARS
If Planted in Every Row of Corn Planted in State This Year Net Profits Will Be $30O0o00O to
 Farmers of Arkansas.

Arkansas.
 quite grown to full size and several weeks before they would have ma tured.
 He thought that the crop would be worthless, but turned his cows into the field after the corn had been a little feed from the beans. He sold gathered, hoping that he would get $40 worth of milk for each acre of frosted, unripe velvet beans that the cows grazed, and they harvested the crop without expense to him. Soil Adapted to Velvet Beans. Velvet beans thrive on any kind of well-drained soil. They do parti- cularly on the well-drained soil that in Arkansas is especially adapted to sweet potatoes. They grow profuse- ly and yield we'll on sandy land, clay land and loam land. They make a profitable growth on thin, worn-out soil.
 In rich, alluvial land the only ob- jection to them is that the growth i is. so heavy and thick that it is diffi cult to gather the corn. On such soils variey of corn should be planted that has thick, strong, short jointed stalks and strong roots. Moseley's Prolific corn is objectionable on rich bottom lands, where velvet beans are planted with the corn, because the roots of this variety are weak and the stalks break down easily under the weight of the velvet bean vines. l Velvet beans are failure on cold, wet soils.
 The Seed.
 Last year Georgia and Alabama velvet bean growers harvested a large quantity for seed. The supply was much greter than the demand and good seed was quoted delivered in car lots in Arkansas as low as $2 bushel. This disgusted the growers and last fall but few beans for seed were harvested. A shortage of labor and long continued wet weather help ed reduce the quantity.
 This spring there is shortage of seed and it is high, retailing in small lots in Arkansas at $3.50 to $4 a bushel. At these high prices an acre can be planted with velvet beans at only small part of the cost of planting it with either soy beans or cowpeas.
 Arkansas farmers should get the seed they need at the earliest pos sible date and should be sure that the seed they buy will germinate well. Owing to the continued wet weather through the fall and winter and the carelessness of the, growers, much of the seed offered has been badly dam aged and shows weak and low ger imitation.
 Quantity of Seed Needed. A bushel of Early Speckled velvet beans will plant six to 10 acres; a bushel of Osceola velvet beans, three to five acres. The quantity of seed needed will depend, of course, on the i. size of the seed, the distance between \ the rows and the distance apart in the row.
 An acre contains 43,500 square feet With rows four feet apart and one bean planted every "A inches, there is bean planted for each eight square feet. It will take at these dis tances 5,445 beans to plant an acre. In sample of Early Speckled 90- day velvet beans offered for seed in ?, Little Rock last week, we found by counting an exact pound that there were Al ,760 beans in a bushel. A bush ell of these beans would plant at the distance mentioned seven and one half acres.
 1~~ >l~ lsct, A~ FnVex to count bushel of seed to find just how must must be bought, but have known many farmers to spend $5 to $40 for seed that they did not need and had to keep because they were not willing to do what they called such trivial work.
 ! Varieties to Plant.
 There are 25 or more varieties of velvet beans. Two varieties only should be planted in Arkansas ex- !cept as an experiment, These are the Early Speckled 90-day and the Osceo- la.
 The Early Speckled 90-day should be planted in three-fourths of the l corn land on each farm. It is not a 9O-day bean as it's name would indi- cate. It natures in 120 to 40 days from the planting. It is heavy yield CT and the beans will stay out in the field all winter in the pow without shelling. have gathered pods off the ground on May l where they had lain }, all winter and found the beans in such condition that they would grow. ] Get seed grown in Georgia or that llraised from Georgia seed. Experts of Il the United States Department of Ag- riculture say that the Early Speckled velvet beans grown in Alabama ma j ture about six weeks later than the Georgia Early Speckled.
 Osceola velvet beans should be