CHAPTER X 



COMPOSITION AND FEEDING VALUE. 



Protein content. The bean plant is exceedingly 

 rich in protein, that most valuable and expensive 

 constituent of stock feeds. A sample of beans 

 grown in New Haven county, Ct., and sent to the 

 experiment station analyzed* as follows: Nitrogen 

 3.75 per cent; phosphoric acid 0.9 per cent; potash 

 1.4 per cent. The yield of the bean field in question 

 was 25 bushels to the acre, and it is figured that the 

 crop appropriated an equivalent of 56.2 pounds of 

 nitrogen to the acre, 13.5 pounds of phosphoric acid 

 and 22 pounds of potash. Peas grown on the same 

 farm, the same year, took about the same amounts of 

 phosphoric acid from the soil, as did the beans, but 

 the last named appropriated approximately 9 pounds 

 more each of nitrogen and potash. Damaged beans, 

 which are sorted out by farmers or bean houses, are 

 frequently referred to as cull beans, and form an 

 excellent food for live stock, particularly sheep and 

 pigs. The greatest drawback to them for horses 

 and cattle is the small gravel stones usually more 

 or less numerous in this grade. Sheep, however, 

 will sort out the beans, leaving the gravel. Cull 

 beans may be cooked and fed to swine with .excel- 

 lent results. If water is stirred in while they are 

 cooking, the gravel will settle to the bottom. They 

 are often ground and mixed with other grain and 

 fed with excellent results to cattle. While cull 



Ct Exper Sta Rpt, 1896, p 334. 



93 



