368 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



would float. Sometimes they will float and sometimes they will not; and 

 when you buy beans to eat, the only way you can tell is by finding the 

 holes in them. If there are no holes, you can eat them. 



Mr. Taylor : The gentleman thought the eggs were laid in the blossom, 

 and in some way they get to each bean. 



Prof. Slingerland: The eggs are stuck through the pod. We used to 

 think the eggs were laid on the outside of the pod, but I saw some of 

 the little beetles digging holes through the pods, right along the seam 

 of the pod, the string as we call it on the string bean; they eat a hole 

 right through, and then stick their eggs through there. They are laid on 

 the pods soon after the pods are formed, when the pods are green. The 

 eggs hatch in a week or so and the little grubs work into the beans. They 

 are so small that you could not tell with the naked eye where they went 

 in. They are white grubs, nice, fat fellows to go with the bean when 

 you eat it! The insect develops and is full grown about the time you get 

 your beans shelled ready for market, and if the beans are kept in a cold 

 place the insects will not come out until spring. If you keep the beans 

 warm they will come out in the fall and winter. The bean weevil will 

 continue to develop in the beans; that is, if you leave beans with the 

 weevils in them the weevils will lay eggs on the dry seeds, stick them 

 upon the sides, and they will continue to breed. If you keep the beans 

 over winter in a warm place you will get half a dozen broods, they will 

 breed right along, over and over again. Now, the pea weevil will not do 

 that. The old remedy used to be to tie the beans or peas in a bag, tie 

 them up tight so that the weevils could not get out, and they would .die 

 there. Now, the bean weevil will not do that. They will breed right 

 along in the dry seed, but the pea weevil will not breed in the dry seed. 

 If you have the bean weevils you should get rid of them, because if you 

 do not they will breed right through the winter if the beans are kept 

 warm enough. 



QUESTIONS 



Will it be of any advantage to sow oats as a mulch in strawberry beds in late 

 ^ummerf 



Mr. Hale: It is a very good plan indeed when you have no other 

 method of getting mulch, to sow oats in your strawberry field at the last 

 hoeing or cultivation, some time in August or early September, and you 

 get a good growth. It checks your growth of strawberries somewhat. 

 It is quite satisfactory. Of course it is free from weeds and seeds or 

 any foreign substance dying down. 



The President: In connection with that I wish to make a suggestion. 

 I never have tried that, but I do a good deal of sowing of various crops 

 between rows that way. I sow wheat in corn sometimes because I can do 

 better with it than I can even in a summer-fallow. For that purpose 

 I have bought a five-spade drill that is adjustable to any width, and it is 

 the neatest little tool in the world if you want to put anything on ground 

 between the rows, and a man can go over just as much as a horse can go 

 over once in a day, and you can slip over it and put in just what you see 

 fit. It only costs fifteen dollars and is made at LaPorte, Indiana, by Rude 

 Brothers, and it is an excellent tool for anybody who is doing any work 

 of that class. 



