84 LIFE ON THE FARM. 



When covered too deeply, they decay in the earth 

 and no crop results. They are planted either in 

 rows for cultivation or sown thickly, as grass or 

 wheat, so as to take full possession of the soil, and 

 grow about as well in one way as the other. 



The crop is gathered and shelled from the pod 

 by hand, or cut with a mowing machine, and 

 threshed with a separator similar to the one used 

 for wheat and oats. 



Some beans are picked before the seeds are ma- 

 ture, the tender pods being cooked and used for food. 

 In this green form they are known as string-beans. 



There are a great many kinds of beans and peas. 

 Some are used as food for human beings and other 

 kinds for live stock. The latter kind are fed very 

 much as hay is cattle, horses, and pigs eating 

 them. They eat not only the seeds, but pods and 

 leaves also. Beans and peas are rich in starch and 

 albuminoids, the former producing fat, and the 

 latter flesh, or lean meat; so that they are desir- 

 able in fattening animals for market. 



All plants of this order not only produce seeds 

 rich in albumen, or nitrogenous food, but they also 

 have the power of extracting free nitrogen from 

 the air and fixing it by means of their roots as 

 nitrates in the soil, from whence other plants can 

 draw supplies. They are able to do this through 

 nitrifying germs growing in little knobs on their 

 roots. For this reason such plants are considered 

 beneficial to the soil and are often grown and 

 plowed under as fertilizers. 



