SEED IMPROVEMENT MEETING. 285 



costs him to produce a yard of cloth. You could not find out 

 if you wanted to. That is one thing that hampers us as farmers 

 and keeps our prices down. The buyers know absolutely what 

 it costs us to produce our products and they will give us only 

 a small margin above what it costs to produce the articles upon 

 the farm. 



I have just one more point to mention, and that is in regard 

 to beans. This matter was quite thoroughly discussed by Mr. 

 Morse yesterday. I believe the association should adopt a type 

 of old fashioned yellow-eyed beans. Possibly it may be ad- 

 visable to take two or three strains. I believe we have three 

 different types on exhibition here. I got a peck of what was 

 termed old fashioned yellow-eyed beans and planted them. I 

 took everything out so that they were all typical, had the same 

 markings and were of uniform size. When we harvested the 

 crop this fall I found that they had begun to run into another 

 form, with quite a little yellow on the beans; and in addition 

 to that, I found a lot of small white beans. I have a kind of 

 old fashioned yellow-eyed beans that I have raised for the last 

 ten years, and every spring I have picked out all the white 

 beans and all the colored beans, and have got those at the pres- 

 ent time so there are but very few white beans and some years 

 no colored beans at all among them; and the white beans that 

 have appeared in those of our own raising are the long kind, 

 not the pea bean as in those that Mr. Hunton gave me. From 

 those which Mr. Hunton sent me I had 24 rows; 16 rows were 

 planted with sweet corn and 8 rows were planted by themselves, 

 side by side, in the same soil, in my young orchard. On the 

 16 rows planted with the corn there was no rust. The beans 

 in the eight rows planted by themselves had commenced to 

 rust, — not enough to damage the beans but the pods had rusted. 

 I always plant beans with my corn for two reasons : First, I 

 am not sure of the sweet corn crop, and, secondly, I am sure of 

 the bean crop, and they never rust. If this association can 

 breed a variety of beans that will not rust it will be of great 

 assistance to the farmers. I do not know whether it is possible 

 or not, but it is something that ought to be carefully considered 

 by the association and worked out so that the farmers through 

 the State can have the advantage of it. 



We should raise the very best seed we can and put it upon 



