MARKETS AND MARKETING III 



less likely to damage from the weather. In Michi- 

 gan, the pea bean is the leader, and this bean is also 

 often known as the navy bean. The southern and 

 western trade call almost entirely for this bean, and 

 so far as that is concerned, enormous quantities are 

 also used in the middle and eastern states. In New 

 York and New England, in addition to pea and 

 medium bean, marrow and kidney beans are largely 

 used, while they have comparatively little sale in the 

 West. For that matter, western growers do not 

 favor them, claiming they ripen unevenly and soon 

 run out. For the Boston market pea beans, yellow 

 eyes and red kidneys are the most popular vari- 

 eties in the order named. Michigan largely con- 

 trols the trade in pea beans, not only for Chicago 

 and other western markets, but also in the East. Yet 

 in normal years a good crop of pea beans is produced 

 in central and western New York. 



Consumption and prices. Most of the beans 

 grown in the United States are consumed at home. 

 There is a moderate foreign trade, but the quantity 

 shipped out one year with another is more than bal- 

 anced by the imports of foreign grown beans. As 

 shown in one of the accompanying tables, where 

 official figures are presented covering a long series 

 of years, we buy more beans abroad than we sell. 

 In other words, production has not yet overtaken 

 consumption, and there should be a reasonable profit 

 in growing beans for market even under consider- 

 able extension of the area given over to this crop. 



