262 FIELD 'AND GARDEN PRODUCTS 



in the season for table use belong to the pole type. For early beans, 

 however, the bush type is the one most commonly used. 



Fertilizers. While beans are quick-growing and early-maturing 

 plants requiring an abundance of available plant food in the soil, yet, 

 because of their family relations, being legumes, they make the soil 

 better for having been grown upon it. They are nitrogen-gathering 

 plants, and for this reason require only a small percentage of this 

 element in any fertilizer used upon them. While heavy applications 

 of fertilizers containing nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash are 

 used by truck growers in the production of beans, as a rule such 

 fertilizers should be relatively richer in phosphoric acid and potash 

 than in nitrogen. The production of garden beans for snap or string 

 beans, however, demands a larger percentage of immediately avail- 

 able nitrogen than does the production of field beans for the dry 

 grain, as in the former case the crop occupies the land a shorter time 

 and therefore gives it less opportunity to provide itself with a supply 

 of nitrogen from the atmosphere. The fertilizer, if used in the form 

 of commercial fertilizer, may be distributed broadcast over the area 

 occupied by the crop with a grain drill or a fertilizer distributer, 

 or it may be scattered along the row at the time the seeds are sown 

 by one of the many types of seed drill having a fertilizer attachment. 



Planting. Garden beans, like field beans, may be planted either 

 in hills or in drills. The customary practice, however, is to plant the 

 seeds in drills so that they shall fall 2 or 4 inches apart in rows far 

 enough apart to admit of cultivation with either one or two horse 

 implements. Because of their peculiar habit of germination the 

 elongation of the part between the root and the seed leaves, called the 

 hypocotyl the seed leaves or cotyledons are lifted out of the soil. A 

 large expenditure of energy on the part of the plant is necessary to 

 accomplish this, and the more compacted the soil and the deeper the 

 seed is planted the more time and energy are required in accomplish- 

 ing this result. It is evident, therefore, that the shallower the beans 

 can be planted without retarding satisfactory germination, the better. 

 Upon thoroughly fine and compacted soils the seeds are planted from 

 1% to 2 inches deep. Shallower planting does not as a rule give as 

 satisfactory germination as planting within the range above men- 

 tioned. While garden beans are planted in extensive areas, they are, 

 nevertheless, frequently used as a catch crop between other plants, 

 such as squashes and cucumbers. The bean, being a quick-growing 



Slant, matures its crop and is out of the way before the entire area is 

 emanded by the companion crop. 



Harvesting. From the nature of the product the harvesting of 



farden beans for use as string or snap beans must necessarily be done 

 y hand. Their extensive culture is therefore restricted to areas in 

 which an abundant labor supply which can be commanded at short 

 notice is available. After the beans are picked they are carried to a 

 convenient sorting table, either in the open or under shelter, where 

 they are looked over, all diseased and broken beans rejected, and the 

 baskets uniformly filled and shaken down preparatory to covering 

 them for shipment. 



