26 BEAN CULTURE 



This was not the case with the beans which he did 

 not inoculate. 



Halsted* reports that one plat of beans on new 

 land which had received a dressing of soil from old 

 bean land yielded equal to the best obtained where 

 fungicides were used. In connection with this it 

 should be remembered that the average yield of this 

 inoculated plat was one half more than on the old 

 bean land, which would seem to indicate that the 

 latter was wearing out, in spite of the advantage of 

 accumulation of tubercle germs. 



Disfavoring soil inoculation. — On the other hand, 

 the experiences of Edwin F. Dibble, the well known 

 New York seed grower, rather discountenance the 

 use of especially prepared bacteria cultures for the 

 bean plant. He says :** "We purchased enough 

 bean culture in 50 acre packages for several hundred 

 acres of different varieties of beans, such as wax, 

 green podded and white beans. We treated the 

 seed exactly according to directions accompanying 

 the package. The beans were planted by farmers 

 on some two-score different farms located in Mon- 

 roe, Livingston and Ontario counties, and western 

 sections of New York. These are conceded to be 

 three of the best bean counties in the state. In every 

 case the culture did not give us or any of our 

 growers one single bean more than we would have 

 obtained if there had been no culture used, and on 

 several fields, the tests where we planted seed treated 

 with the culture, and untreated seed, the results 

 were in favor of the untreated seed. That, in a 



*N J Bxper Sta Kpt 1890. "National Stockman and Farmer, 

 Dec 1, 1905. 



