462 



BEAN 



BEAN 



one half to 3 acre-inches per acre are applied at this 

 time. 



Harvesting, and caring for the product. 



In the sections of light and unirrigated land, the 

 beans ripen from August 20 to September 10. In the 

 irrigated parts and on heavier land, they ripen from 

 September 10 to September 25 or October 1. These 

 dates indicate the time the beans are harvested. Before 

 the earliest date for each section there will be some dry 

 pods in all the fields and at the latest date of harvest 

 there are always green pods. 



The beans are harvested by a seed-cutter with two 

 runners 12 to 15 inches high. On the inner side of each 

 a knife is set diagonally backward and toward the middle 

 of the sled. A few 

 inches above each 

 knife is a bar of iron 

 or wood set in a simi- 

 lar position. The sled- 

 runners are such 

 distance apart that 

 two rows of beans 

 will pass between 

 them. Hence each 

 knife is drawn along 

 the line of the row 

 cutting the plants 

 just below the sur- 

 face of the ground. 

 The diagonal position 

 of the knife causes it 

 to cut the plants 

 clean without pulling 

 up by the roots, and 

 together with the 

 diagonal bar above, pushes both 

 rows to the middle, leaving them 

 together in a windrow. These 

 cutters are often mounted on 

 wheels to bear the main weight 

 of the sled and driver, the runner 

 cutting into the ground just 

 enough to hold it firmly to the 

 row. Levers are provided to 

 raise and lower the frame of the 

 sled. A man with two or three 

 horses, usually three, cuts from 

 8 to 12J^ acres a day. 



The vines, after lying in wind- 

 rows for a few hours, as left by 

 the cutter, are piled by hand 

 with pitchforks. Three wind- 

 rows are commonly placed to- 

 gether in one row of piles. Piles are 4 or 5 feet in 

 diameter on the ground and 3 feet high. 'They remain 

 in these piles till very dry, which is a length of time 

 varying with the weather and the maturity of the 

 beans, but usually from two to three weeks. A man 

 is expected to pile about 5 acres a day, but frequently 

 does not pile more than 2 or 3 acres. It requires from 

 two to three men to handle the beans cut with one sled. 



Threshing is done by itinerant machines, using for 

 power either steam or gasolene engines. The machines 

 thresh from 1,000 to 2,500 sacks per day, 1,500 being a 

 fair day's work. In a few instances about 3,000 sacks 

 have been threshed in a day. The charge is usually 

 25 cents a hundred pounds, equal to 20 cents a sack. 

 The beans are stored in large warehouses until mar- 

 keted, and are generally recleaned by a mechanical 

 recleaner which is very satisfactory. 



Yield and value of crop. 



The average yield is about fourteen sacks, eighty 

 pounds per sack, or about 1,120 pounds per acre. Some 

 fields produce nearly three times this amount, but in 



485. The Chickasaw Lima, or Jack bean. 

 Canavalia ensiformis. ( X M) 



the best section an average of twenty-five sacks or 2,000 

 pounds per acre is considered to be satisfactory. 



Another factor which is of importance, and which has 

 only recently come to be appreciated, is the value of the 

 bean straw as rough feed. It is generally regarded that 

 the straw is worth about SI per ton in the field, loose. 



GEORGE W. SHAW. 



Tepary beans. 



The tepary is a small white bean native to the 

 southwestern region of the United States (P/-, 

 acutifolius var. latifolius), long grown by the Indians 

 and now receiving attention from general cultivators. 

 The first full acount is in Bulletin 68, Arizona Experi- 

 ment Station (1912). 



The development of artesian and dry-farming dis- 

 tricts in Arizona, together with the increased use of 

 pumped water for irrigation, have created a need for a 

 leguminous crop which, used in rotation with grain or 

 forage planting, will maintain the nitrogen and humous 

 content of the soil and at the same time provide a 

 money return which is sure and profitable. The experi- 

 ence of practical farmers throughout Arizona and New- 

 Mexico has for years demonstrated the fact that no 

 crop so well fills this demand as the growing of dry 

 shell beans. Being a countrywide food staple, they have 

 a steady market which is little influenced by local 

 conditions other than transportation 

 charges. As corn in Illinois, cotton in 

 Texas or wheat in Kansas represent 

 to their producers products of staple 

 value, so may the dry-farmers of the 

 Southwest, and those irrigating with 

 artesian and pumped waters, look to 

 the bean as a money-crop which at all 

 times may be surely and readily turned 

 into cash. 



Varieties of beans originated in the 

 humid sections of the East are of but 

 little value when grown in Arizona. 

 They do not withstand satisfactorily 

 the extreme aridity and heat of the air 

 during the summer months. Out of a 

 large number of varieties tested at 

 Yuma, only those of southwestern 

 origin were at all successful. 



Among these southwestern varieties 

 of beans, first tested at Yuma in 1909, 

 certain ones were noted which gave 

 yields far in excess of all others, includ- 

 ing even the much-prized pink bean, 

 or frijole. Subsequent investigations 

 developed the fact that this group of 

 varieties (known as teparies) was distinct from either 

 the common kidney or snap bean. They were found to 

 constitute a new species, hitherto unrecognized as a 

 cultivated plant in botanical or horticultural literature. 

 It has been described by the writer as a new variety of 

 Phaseolus aculifolius. In its wild state, rhaseohm 

 acutifolius is peculiar to the southwestern desert 

 region. It may be found on the mountain-sides and in 

 narrow valleys from the Pecos river westward across 

 New Mexico and Arizona and southward into the 

 adjoining states of Mexico. Domesticated from the 

 neighboring canons and cultivated in small p.-r 

 attended at best by a crude husbandry and dependent 

 upon the precarious summer rains and uncertain floods 

 from the mountain washes for irrigation, the tepary has 

 lost none of its native hardiness. It has been cultivated 

 by the Papago and Pima Indians from prehistoric 

 times and in all probability formed one of the principal 

 food-crops of that ancient and unknown agricultural 

 race, the ruins of whose cities and irrigating canals are 

 now the only witnesses of their former presence and 

 prosperity. 



