Gleanings in Bee Culture 



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SOY BEANS AND CHUFAS FOR CHICKENS, 

 PIGS, AND OTHER FARM STOCK. 



On the last cover page of GtLBANings for 

 May 1 you may have noticed A. T. Cook's 

 advertisement of his "domestic cofifee-ber- 

 ry." He gives a picture of the plant loaded 

 with the coffee-berry, or soy beans, for that 

 is what it is. He says it is as easily raised 

 as corn, will ripen in 80 days, and is one of 

 the very best egg-producing foods for poul- 

 try. Some time in June I sent for a pint, I 

 think it was, to try them again for cofTee. 

 Our older friends will remember we discuss- 

 ed the American cofifee-berry in place of 

 real coflfee several years ago. Well, we tried 

 it again and compared it with Terry's cofTee 

 made of browned wheat, and I myself pre- 

 fer either of them to real cofTee. As the soy 

 bean has a slight beany flavor I rather pre- 

 fer the wheat; but it is certainly a very good 

 and nourishing cofTee, and I think it is far 

 preferable to the real stimulating coffee. As 

 we did not use up all the beans for coffee, 

 when my son-in-law was making garden he 

 had some vacant ground — a part of a row — 

 and I told him I should like to put in it my 

 coffee-beans. 



They were sprinkled in pretty thick. It 

 made a row perhaps 100 feet long. This was 

 about the middle of .Tune. Well, we give 

 you a picture, on page 598, of that row of 

 soy beans 80 days after planting. I stood 

 up in the row so as to give you an idea of the 

 height and luxuriance of the plants. The 

 ground they were planted on was where we 

 had our plot of timothy grown on the Clark 

 method (see advertising page 23, Aug. 15) . 

 I think there was some manure spread over 

 the timothy sod before plowing before I 

 came back from Florida. These beanstalks, 

 as you see, are more than a yard tall, and 

 they are covered with pods containing beans 

 all the way up. If you look closely you can 

 seethe bean-pods hangingfrom the branches. 

 They are all over the plant. Now, if cut 

 and fed to cattle or horses while the beans 

 are green, our experiment stations say they 

 are about the most concentrated food of any 

 thing in the shape of hay. I have just been 

 out to this patch and stripped a lot of the 

 beans from several stalks, and fed them to 

 the poultry near by. The younger chickens 

 did not seem to be satisfied at first that the 

 beans were good to eat, and the old hens 

 spent quite a little time in biting them and 

 dropping them again. When they found 

 beans that were soft enough to mash up so 

 they could get a taste, they began to gobble 

 them up eagerly. The two roosters, how- 

 ever, took them at sight and swallowed them 

 all down, green or old, as fast as I shelled 

 them out. I suppose you know poultry has 

 to get used to a new kind of food or diet, 

 especially when it is in the shape of grain. 



Some years ago, up in Michigan, I grew a 

 lot of Banner beans, as they were called in 

 the seed catalogs. They were so prolific 



that my neighbor Hilbert pulled up a lot 

 and carried them home in order to save the 

 seed. Thinking that, of course, the hens 

 would not eat beans, he put them on the 

 barn floor. One rainy day, when the chick- 

 ens were driven inside, they got to fussing 

 with the beans, and before my friend knew 

 it the fowls had shelled out the dry beans 

 and had eaten almost every one. They had 

 learned the trick, and found that beans were 

 not "pizen." By the way, if you wish to 

 teach chickens to eat beans and peas for 

 food, just plant the beans in the garden and 

 let the fowls dig them up. Do you ask why 

 we should take so much pains to teach 

 chickens to eat soy beans? Here is my an- 

 swer. It is a copy of an advertisement from 

 that excellent poultry-journal, the Petalu- 

 ma (Cal.) Weekly: 



SOY-BEAN MEAI. PROTEIN EXCEEDING 44% FOK CAT- 

 TI.E, POUI.TRY, AND ALL FARM ANIMALS. 



Will double your milk, cream, and egg supply. 

 Takes the place of beef scraps for laying hens at 

 about half the cost. Soy-bean meal is endorsed by 

 the United States Department of Agriculture, and 

 many university experiment stations, as one of the 

 best concentrated foods obtainable. For sale by all 

 dealers. If yoiir dealer can not supply you, please 

 send us his name and address. Samples supplied 

 by us on application. 



North American Mercantile Co., 

 318-320 Front St., San Francisco, Cal. 



From a pamphlet the above firm sends 

 out we clip the following: 



Farmers' Bulletin No. 372, U. S. Department of 

 Agriculture, is authority for the statement that soy- 

 bean hay is about equal to alfalfa lor milk and but- 

 ter i^roduction, and, also, that soy-bean meal Is su- 

 perior to cotton-seed meal for pork, mutton, and 

 milk. According to experiments at the Tennessee 

 Agricultural College, so.v-bean hay proved to be su- 

 perior to alfalfa hay. (Bulletin 80, Tennessee Agri- 

 culture College, 1908.) 



The soy bean has been tested at most of the ex- 

 periment stations as a forage crop, and the result 

 has been very gratifying. 



Good preparation of the soil is necessary for the 

 soy bean, otherwise weeds are likely to choke out 

 the young plants. They may be sown broadcast or 

 drilled, with the idea of using them as hay. If in 

 rows they should be planted so as to have a plant 

 on an average of two or three inches in a row, and 

 the rows thirty to thirty-six inches apart. Planting 

 should be shallow, preferably one inch and not to 

 exceed two inches in depth. They may be planted 

 through a wide period from early spring to mid- 

 summer. 



Soy-bean hay yields from two to three tons per 

 acre. To make good hay the crop must be cut when 

 about half the pods are full grown or when the top 

 leaves first begin to turn yellow. 



Always be sure when planting that you have fresh 

 seed, as the bean deteriorates after a season, and 

 sometimes when over a year old will not germinate 

 at all. 



A bushel of soy beans is at least twice as valuable 

 for feed as a bushel of corn. (U. S. Dept. Agricul- 

 ture, Bulletin 372.) 



I suppose somebody will make another 

 "kick" about my free advertising; but 

 when an advertisement like this tells us 

 about a new chicken food I think they merit 

 some free advertising. I have not seen their 

 booklet as yet, but I have sent for it. Now, 

 if these soy beans or the soy-bean meal will 

 really take the place of beef scraps, it is very 

 important that all of vis get on to it and 

 raise our own meat for chickens. This soy- 



