138 CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES 



evaporation and the crop is left to its own course. With bush va- 

 rieties longer and deeper cultivation is desirable, at least if the 

 ground is apt to become compact, so that the earth-mulch described 

 in the chapter on cultivation is maintained. One grower at Marys- 

 ville, who gets a very large yield of Lady Washingtons, starts in 

 with chisel-toothed cultivators as soon as the rows can be deter- 

 mined and continues at four- or five-day intervals as long as the 

 cultivators can get through the rows. Eight to ten cultivations are 

 given, the cost being about 35 cents an acre for each cultivation, 

 $3.50 an acre for the season, which he considers a good investment 

 for a greater crop. 



Irrigation. Except on low moist land bean crops are usually 

 considerably increased by irrigation. A long run of a small head 

 of water in furrows between the rows is the common method, and 

 one or two irrigations as needed in June and July are counted 

 sufficient. 



Gathering. Gathering the crop cannot usually wait until all 

 the beans have ripened, for fear of shelling out the earlier maturing 

 pods of some varieties, and for fear also of the fall rains already 

 mentioned. Cutting should begin when the grower's judgment tells 

 him he is about midway between the two dangers. The date will, 

 of course, vary in different localities. The Lima bean has a longer 

 growing season, and on the south coast is liable to encounter serious 

 hot spells in August or September after other beans are matured 

 and beyound injury. This heat shrivels the immature pods and les- 

 sens the crop. 



Hand pulling or cutting of the vines, or plowing out, is no 

 longer practiced in larger fields. A cutter operated by horse power 

 is generally used. Two planks are framed and braced in sled-form, 

 with cross pieces on the top, about four feet apart. From each, 

 on the inside, a steel blade projects diagonally toward the center, 

 some two feet, being fastened to the bottom of the sled runner. 

 Two or three horses are hitched to the sled, which encloses two 

 rows of beans; the blades of steel cut off the vines beneath the 

 surface and push them into a central windrow so that they are 

 readily gathered with pitch-forks and are thrown into heaps. An- 

 other form of bean cutter is a sled armed with knives six feet long 

 which come together in front and spread far enough behind to cut 

 two rows at once. With these outside cutting knives the sled is 

 not over two feet wide. Some growers aim to have these knives 

 run in the loose surface soil at a depth of about two inches ; others 

 run them deeper along the top of the firm earth below the culti- 

 vated layer. 



There are some local variations in the form of the "cutter" or 

 "harvester," and in some cases an iron-frame cutter constructed on 

 the model of a V-shaped cultivator with guiding wheel is used. 

 Recently manufacturers have designed improved forms of bean 

 cutters which are displacing the old home-made contrivances and 



