242 VEGETABLE GARDENING 



After cutting, the rows may be thrown together into 

 small piles for curing, or they may be moved into wind- 

 rows by side-delivery rakes. The crop is allowed to 

 ripen fully in the field, so that only a few days after 

 cutting are required for curing. If the weather is wet, 

 the piles must be turned frequently to prevent damage 

 to the beans. After thorough curing the crop is stored 

 in barns after the manner in which hay is handled, and 

 threshed whenever it is convenient, but not until cool 

 weather. The old method was to flail, while now bean 

 threshers are generally employed. These machines are 

 moved from farm to farm, just as grain threshers or sep- 

 arators are used. 



314. Marketing. In the districts producing large 

 amounts of field beans the threshed product is delivered 

 by the farmers at elevators or special bean houses man- 

 aged by dealers who attend to the work of cleaning, 

 grading and picking. In Michigan there are over 200 

 bean elevators provided with the best machinery for 

 preparing the crop for market. While the machines re- 

 move most of the dirt and broken beans, some hand 

 picking is necessary to get the crop thoroughly cleaned. 

 To facilitate this tedious work a machine spreads the 

 beans thinly on a revolving broad belt, which passes 

 slowly before the picker. The speed of the belt is con- 

 trolled by the person removing the defective beans. 

 Girls and women are employed extensively to do this 

 work, some houses maintaining a force throughout the 

 year. Dealers who contract for the crop, generally fur- 

 nish bags to the farmers free of charge. 



String or snap beans are often sorted before market- 

 ing to remove broken or damaged pods. They are gen- 

 erally carried in bushel hampers and shipped by express 

 and refrigerated freight, a car holding about 600 ham- 

 pers. The hampers should be well filled and the pods 



