556 Transactions of the American Institute. 



July and August. Tliej are much the stronger after a long dry spell. 

 They are beaten or stripped off, and dried on the ground. Southern 

 sumac is much stronger than northern, and ought to be worth much 

 more. It is used principally in tanning morocco. The best market 

 towns for dried sumac leaves are Lynn, Mass.; Wilmington, Del.; 

 Philadelphia ; and jS^ewark, ]!^ew Jersey. 



Cultivation of Beans. 



Lewis "W. Burwell, Littleton, Sussex county, Ya., is anxious to 

 plant five or six acres of the most profitable class of beans. He would 

 also know about the mold of forests, and especially pine forests, so as 

 to use the straw with the most advantage. 



Mr. Wm. S. Carpenter. — They will grow on light sand}' soils, and 

 yield more profit, considering the soil and the labor they demand, 

 than most other crops. The white kidney bean is the best. Beans 

 will not flourish on a heavy wet soil ; thirty bushels to the acre is a 

 good crop. Much of the time they sell in New York and other cities 

 at four dollars a bushel. 



Mr. P. T. Qiiinn. — If his woods abound in forest mold, let him 

 gather it and compost it with stable manure. They aid each other. 

 He should collect pine straw every wet day when his hands cannot 

 plow, and use it, as litter, freely about a yard ; it is a substitute for 

 straw, and. makes, when rotted, a good manure, especially for pota- 

 toes. If he can sell beans as a fresh vegetable, he should by all 

 means choose the Lima, but, for common marketing, the navy white 

 would be best for him. Any manure good for corn or cotton will 

 make beans grow. 



When to Cut Grain. 



Mr. R. Clymer, of Sidney, 1^. Y., quotes the recent lecture of Prof. 

 Horsford, as proving that grain should stand till fully ripe. If you 

 cut wheat or rye ten days too early, you lose one-fifth of its nutriment. 



Mr. A. S. Fuller. — If farmers Would but study the laws of vegeta- 

 ble life, these questions would not puzzle them. In the blade and 

 leaf there is a provision for wastage or going back. But in the grain 

 there is no organism by which the elements can go back out of the 

 kernel into the ground and pass a\vay into the air or the earth. 



Mr. W. S. Carpenter. — I have given this subject a good deal of 

 attention, and it will take more than a Cambridge professor, if he is 

 an expert in bread-making, to persuade me to let my grain stand till 

 it is dead ripe. The sign I go by is the butt end of the stalk, the 



