VARIETY FORMS FOR BUSH KIDNEY BEANS. 21 



well shown by Red ^^alentine, which, although stringy, is one of the 

 tenderest and most fleshy of all yarieties. 



Fiber w snap pods (none, inappreciable, small, moderate, much). — 

 Fiber in bean pods is used to designate the tough layer of parchment 

 present to a greater or less degree in the walls of all pods at the green- 

 shell stage, but absent or inappreciable at the snap-pod stage of some 

 varieties. 



Quality of snap pods (very good, good, good to medium, medium, 

 poor to medium, poor, very poor). — Quality in snaj) pods of American 

 kidney beans is largely a (juestion of tenderness, fleshiness, and free- 

 dom from fiber and, unlike English Broad beans and other species, 

 hardly at all a matter of flavor. Contrary to general opinion, as good 

 a quality of snaj) pods can be selected from the green-podded as from 

 the wax-podded varieties. 



Freedom froin anthracnose, rust, and other diseases. — Resistance to 

 disease depends so largely upon conditions that only by a very large 

 number of tests can an exact statement on disease resistance be 

 obtained. In some favorable seasons all the varieties in the tests of 

 the Department of Agriculture were free from disease; in other years 

 nearly all were more or less afl'ected ; while in still other years some- 

 times the early and sometimes only the late sorts were afl'ected. In 

 some seasons the conditions favoring the spread of disease do not 

 come till the early sorts are past injury ; in other years these injurious 

 conditions may exist only during the period of the earl}^ varieties. It 

 seems also that diseases may be carried in the seed and that the pres- 

 ence of anthracnose and rust are due merely to accidental or tempo- 

 T&ry infection of particular lots of seed rather than to a continuous or 

 inherent tendency of certain varieties to disease. As the results of tests 

 of disease resistance made by the Department of Agriculture were 

 somewhat irregular and incomplete, the notes made in tliis bulletin on 

 freedom of varieties from anthracnose can not be said to apply regu- 

 larly to all sections of the country. 



Dorsal and ventral sutures. — These are terms used in botany to 

 denote the lines of dehiscence in seed pods, the ventral suture signifjang 

 the line along which the seeds of a pod are attached and the dorsal 

 suture the opposite line of dehiscence. Morphologically speaking, a 

 seed pod consists of one or more transformed folded leaves, that of the 

 bean pod being analogous to a single leaf the margins of which have 

 folded inward and grown together so as to produce seeds at their line 

 of union. 



Length of pod point (very long, long, medium, short medium, short, 

 very short). — The pod point or spur of bean pods varies in length from 

 very long, as in Longfellow and Bountiful, to very short, as in Eureka 

 and Ward well's Kidney Wax. 



109 



