Tuesday, September 1, 1903 J THE PROGRESSIVE FARMER $
Michigan Methods in Bean Culture.
Editor of The Progressive Farmer :
It isn't so very many years since
bean growing in this region was con
fined to affew grown in the garden
for summer use while green. Barely
a farmer would plant a few for dry
beans. Occasionally a "down east"
family of settlers would maintain
the traditions of the home land and
grow a "patch" of beans for home
use, but, as a rule, beans didn't seem
to be a popular every day diet.
The little crop would be hand
planted with a hoe, hand hoed, hand
pulled and often hand stacked around
a short pole driven in the earth, a
little round stack six or seven feet
tall, roots to the pole and tops out
side. Here the beans would dry out
and, if thatched on top with a little
hay or straw, keep nicely until win
ter. Some cold, dry day when the
pods would pop open at a touch, the
farmer would pound them out by
hand with a flail and have a possible
bushel or two for food and seed. No
market for beans in those days.
As the country gained in im
provements came a new class, sec
ondary pioneers so to speak, who had
some money with which to buy out
the heirs of those first pioneers who
fought the helpless giants of the
forests with ringing battle ax and
died, even as those giants.
Among these later arrivals were
men from the bean-growing regions
of Central Xew York, who had made
money in beans in the days when
the uncivil war boomed bean eat
ing. For many a veteran of that in
sane conflict will tell of weary
leagues marched on the strength of
this Yankee oyster. The bean is a
great muscle builder and our
Uncle Sam ought to build a monu
ment to beans.
These eastern men began cautious
ly to try Michigan soil and climate
as bean vineyards. The old varieties,
with their dreams of Jack-the-Giant-Killer,
were superseded by varieties
in which the desire to revert to vine
wa destroyed or subdued navy,
medium and pea beans. The latter
stems best adopted to our condi
tions. Quick growth,' few vines,
ven ripening and good yield. First
an acre; or two, then a field; then a
home market where the pioneer grow
ers had to ship to commission
houses at first. Nowt this, Genesee
('"iinty, is one of the banner bean
growing centres of the State, and
some says of the country.
Crops of twenty, forty and occa
sionally of one hundred acres are
grown. The usual method is to plow
and fit the ground about the first
f dune. The beans are- drilled in
usually between the fifth and twen
tieth of the month. Both the Em-Im-
and the Superior grain drills are
"mnion, and enough hoes are taken
11 1 to leave the rowTs twenty-eight
inches apart. These are given culti
vation with one or two-horse culti
vators at will, from once to half a
d'z-n times, according to condi
tions. eather conditions will ' cause va
riations in date of maturity, but
somewhere . in the vicinity of one
hundred days say , the last half of
September the crop is ripe for pull
ing. The pioneers pulled by hand.
Then came loosening them with a
one-horse cultivator, rigged for the
purpose, after which followed men
with forks who forked out the beans
in small bunches to wilt. In a day
or two these bunches were turned
over and left in orderly rows. As
the drying progressed, 'the bunches
were made larger and the rowsfar
ther apart. When cured, the rows
were far enough apart for a two
horse wagon and rack to drive be
tween. One or two men on a side
with forks pitched the beans on the
load in an orderly manner, loading
on the outside of rack only. The
driver merely trod them down.
Now, bean pulling machines are
in use, drawn by two horses, with
sharpened shares that cut two rows
of beans at the root and push them
together. Men with forks complete
the work as before. The side delivery
rake is being rapidly introduced.
This tool delivers the pulled beans
in a window from which the hay
loader lifts them onto the wagon.
Hand work is becoming a lost art
very rapidly. Farmers are riding at
nearly all kinds of work. The hired
man is being rapidly eliminated to
the cities and tender mercies of vast
corporations.
Almost as soon as the crop is safe
in the barn, the bean threshers swarm
the roads, traction engine and ten
der, with vast separators like wheat
threshers that whoop out three or
four crops in a day with four men
machine hands and six or eight fur
nished by the farmer. A dreaded,
dirty job. And now, if beans are
lively, the roads are hot with the
rush of buyers who try to contract
the beans thousands of bushels
where in the memory of men a man
couldn't sell a peck ! Delivered at
the "beaneries" in town, improved
machines clean out the dirt, speil
and small beans. Often the crop of
a farmer is caught by rain before
it is secured, and more or less of
the beans stained by lying on the
earth. All these are removed by
hand. In buying, the buyer has a
scale and brass quart cup attached.
This, full of beans as a sample, is
weighed, picked over and the good
beans reweighed. From this the
"pick out" per bushel is estimated,
and the price regulated according to
market.
Girls, women and boys are em
ployed to pick over the beans. It
makes a good winter job for many
shelter, warmth, a good place to gos
sip and some money. They are paid
so much per pound for what they
reject as bad. The beans are deliver
ed by a machine in a continuous
stream, regulated by the picker.
The cull beans are marketed in
quantities to farmers and other
feeders of stock. Cooked, they make
an excellent addition to other grain
rations for hogs and poultry. They
do not make a balanced ration alone.
The greatest use, however, is in
feeding ewes and fattening spring
lambs, a great industry in these parts
that I may tell your readers about
some day.
The bean crop is something of a
lottery. A heavy rain often causes
thousands of dollars of loss to farm
ers? - They spoil quickly on the
ground. I've known them to sell for
twenty-five cents a bushel when dam
aged. Good beams have brought
right around two dollars for a year.
Some heavy growers who held for
more last winter are now selling at
$1.70 to $1.90, with a prospect of
lower prices. The crop bids fair as
this is written. v
The amount of seed varies, but
half a bushel per acre seems to be
about right with us. The yield runs
from ten to thirty bushels per acre,
and the price will average ten to
twelve shillings. No gTeat wealth
compared with .Carolina cotton and
bright tobacco, but bean growers
manage to skate along comfortably
in our bitter winters and have a little
bank account to warm up hope and
happiness. H.
Genesee Co., Michigan.
The Revolution by Farm Machinery.
Farm machinery may sometimes do
work for us that will be worth $1,
000,000,000 a year. Theoretically it
is already saving us nearly three:
fourths that sum; for as far back
as 1899, if all the crops to which
machinery is adapted could have been
planted and gathered by hand, they
would have cost nearly $700,000,000
more than if they had all been plant
ed and gathered by machinery. It
has not only added so much to our
wealth, but it has made us the fore
most exporting nation, and it is
changing the character of the farmer
by freeing him from monotonous
hand-toil. More than that, it is fast
changing the immemorial conception
of agriculture and the pastoral and
idyllic associations that have gather
ed about it since the time of Abra
ham. Wealth, industry, commence,
the character of men and even their
sentiment are all affected by it.
Yet so sudden have been these
changes that we have yet hardly
caught their meaning. The cradle
scythe is only a little more than a
century old, and the cast-iron plow
was first used even later than the
cradle-scathe. In other words, a
century ago agricultural machinery
was almost as primitive asit was a
thousand years ago. Now we have
steam plows, combined harvesters and
threshers and auto-mowers. They
have come into use so recently that
only a small part of the population
have ever seen them at work. Yet
they are changing our life in all its
wide reaches from commerce to
poetry. W. B. Thornton, in the Au
gust World's Work.
Bermuda grass and burr clover
make a splendid pasture, the grass
affording fine grazing from early
spring until cool weather, when the
clover springs up and grows all win
ter affording very rich grazing. For
a little while cattle may not like-to
eat the clover, but soon they become
very fond of it. Farm and Banch.
EASY SCIENCE STUDIES FOR
FARMERS.
XXII. Potosh.
Potash is easy. It is the larger
part of the ash of vegetable sub
stances ; lye is potash in liquid form.
It is a necessary constituent of all
plant growth. N
It is found in all good soils in vari
able quantities; most of his is in
soluble and crops often show the
need for potash when there are tons
of it to every acre. The important
thing frqm a practical standpoint is
to render it available. Lime or gyp
sum dissolves the potash and liber
ates it so that plant roots may take
it up and use it to form woody fibre
and grains of fruits. Potash is the
base of thfe well known fruit acids.
Potash is a mineral, and when it
gets in the soil it is there to stay
until some plant takes it out; it
does not leach.
When the native potash of the soil
becomes exhausted, lime and gypsum
fail to act and these coaxers some
times get blamed when- in fact more
potash should be applied.
The chief source of potash for
farm plants oth6r than that con
tained in yard manures, was wood
ashes, until an inexhaustible potash
mine was discovered in 1859 near
Stassfurt, Germany. This mine has
been worked since 1862, and the sup
ly is sufficient to meet all demands.
The price to the farmer is about
four cents a pound, but until the
soil supply is exhausted it is better
to use the cheaper lime and gypsum.
Potash is found in many 'forms,
that is, mixed with other substances.
Potassium, the chemical elements, is"
never found in a pure state. It is
always combined with sulphur, car
bon, common salt et cetera, and
then it is called sulphate of potash,
carbonate of potash or muriate of
potash. Kainit is a common form,
but is low in potash;, containing
usually about 25 per cent of sul
phate of potash.
Potash is used in soap-making,-glass-making
and in many drugs and
medicines as well as fertilizers.
Coleman's Bural World.
The Mexican Boll Weevil.
The control of the Mexican boll
weevil in the cotton fields of Texas
is one of the problems which the
Agricultural Department is seeming
to solve. These enemies to the cot
ton plant first appeared in the United
States in Texas in 1901, coming from
Mexico. Their record there in 2 years
shows that they are capable of becom
ing the most destructive pests in the
country. It is feared that they may
get over into Louisiana and from
there on to the balance of the cotton
States. Congress appropriated $20,
000 to investigate the matter, and
on two farms upon which experi
ments have been made, the attempts
at control were very satisfactory.
An agent has been sent to Mexico
to study the habits of the insect,
and if possible to discover its natural
enemies and introduce them into the
affected districts of Texas.