SEED IMPROVEMENT MEETING. 253 



have a reddish color, striped with black. The white beans are 

 very much more prolific than the yellow eyes. If you keep 

 planting the seed of the beans as they grow, in a few years they 

 will go back to the black and white beans, because they are so 

 much more prolific. I cannot tell you the percentage of black 

 and white beans we get now, but it is very small. I think I 

 have selected seed in that way three years. It is very encour- 

 aging to me to see so much improvement in the crop with that 

 little bit of labor. 



We let the beans stand until the leaves are about half off, 

 when we cut them. In that way they will dry off, and most of 

 the leaves will be off by the time they are put in the barn. If 

 you have a mow fairly well ventilated you can pitch them into 

 the mow without trouble, only do not tread them ; do not stand 

 on them to pitch them back ; have something to stand on so that 

 they will not be trodden down. One year we had quite a large 

 lot. I stbod on them as I would a mow of hay, and when we 

 came to thresh them the beans had settled down and we lost a 

 lot of them by mildew and mold. 



Three years ago this fall we bought a bean-thresher. It is a 

 very nice-working machine, but I got too small a size, and it 

 does the work slowly. It will thresh them nicely and clean them 

 up, so that if you bought a barrel of the beans you would say 

 they were ready for market. But we hand-pick them all. If 

 anyone is going into the raising of beans to any extent, the thing 

 to do would be for two or three to join together and buy a ma- 

 chine of some size. With this one of ours, with beans well 

 filled, we can thresh three or four bushels an hour. Last year 

 I could do that myself without any help, but usually it takes 

 two. This year we have more vines and find it pretty hard 

 work for two to thresh more than that. It is a small machine, 

 run by gasolene. It leaves the fodder in fine shape. We find 

 the fodder is quite an item in our dairy work. It is not only 

 a good feed, but I think it has a medicinal effect on the cows. 

 For two years our bean crop was a failure, and we had more 

 trouble with our cows in the two years, from garget and other 

 troubles, than for 20 years altogether. I think this shows that 

 the beans have a good eifect. 



I have met some people since I have been here who say that 

 their cows will not eat bean pods, but ours do. We feed them 



