LEGUMES FOR SKKD 22Q 



speed. Skill in adjusting the speed of the machine to the con- 

 dition of the beans to be threshed is essential, in order to get 

 all the beans without splitting any. 



Beans, being an annual, thinly planted, inter-tilled crop, do 

 not have the stubble to keep them off the soil; consequently a 

 good deal of dirt and, sometimes, stones are picked up with the 

 vines which are to be threshed. Special devices for removing 

 the dirt and special precautions against the breakage due to 

 stones are therefore required. Some bean threshers have re- 

 cleaners attached which break up the lumps of dirt and sepa- 

 rate the material after it has thus been made fine. Less beans 

 are split when they are threshed with a flail, and although it is 

 much slower, some prefer this method. 



273. History and Use. Commercial bean growing in the 

 United States may be said to have begun in Orleans County, 

 New York, in 1839.* The production of beans was given an im- 

 petus in the early sixties, because of their use in the army and 

 navy, and more recently to a less extent by the Spanish-Ameri- 

 can War. The recent practise of canning beans has also ex- 

 tended their use. Beans are not much used for domestic animals, 

 although they are employed for this purpose somewhat more 

 largely in Canada than in the United States. Locally, however, 

 cull beans may be obtained at a price that makes them an econom- 

 ical and desirable food. They may be fed raw to sheep, but must 

 be cooked in order to be eaten by cattle or swine. Bean straw, 

 when fed in connection with other foods, makes a fairly desira- 

 ble food for sheep and dairy cattle. It contains a higher per- 

 centage of protein than timothy hay. It is laxative when fed 

 too freely. 



1 History of the bean industry; in Transactions N. Y. State Agr. Soc. for 

 1897, p. 323. 



