206 



BEANS 



BEANS 



Feeds and Feeding ; Hunt, Cereals in America ; 

 Wilcox and Smith, Farmers' Cyclopedia of Agri- 

 culture ; Wisconsin Experiment Association, 3d 

 and 4th reports ; Wisconsin Experiment Station 

 reports, 20, 21, 22, 23 ; Yearbooks of the United 

 States Department of Agriculture. 



BEAN, FIELD. 



minosx. Figs. 



Phaseolus vulgaris, Linn. Legu- 

 295-302. 



By J. L. Stone. 



Annual plants of bush or twining habit, of un- 

 known habitat but probably native to the New 

 World, grown for the edible seeds. 

 Leaves 3-foliolate, the leaflets stalked 

 and stipellate, entire ; flowers papilion- 

 aceous, greenish, whitish or tinted with 

 blue or blush, few at the apex of a 

 short axillary peduncle, the stamens 9 

 and 1, pistil 1 and contained within the 

 stamen tube, which is enclosed in the 

 spiralled or twisted keel (a, Fig. 295); 

 fruit a long, 2-valved pod containing 

 many oblong or sometimes oval seeds of 

 many colors. The common garden snap 

 beans are of the same species. The bush 

 beans are often separated as a distinct 

 species, P. nanus, but both bush and pole 

 varieties are undoubtedly domestic de- 

 rivatives of one species. 



New York. The advent of the weevil in 1846, 

 which proved very destructive in the wheat-fields, 

 ofl'ered to farmers the first inducement to experi- 

 ment in raising beans. However, the industry 

 made little growth down to 1861. At this time 

 the government began to buy beans for use in the 

 army and during the years of the civil war pro- 

 duction increased very rapidly. At the close of the 

 war the government demand ceased, but the soldiers 

 had learned to eat beans and they carried the 

 habit back with them into home life and induced 

 others to eat beans also. Thus arose the consump- 

 tive demand for beans that has made possible the 

 great development of the indus- 

 try. Other causes have influ- 

 enced the extension of the con- 

 sumption of beans in certain 

 localities, but none were of so 

 widespread influence as the civil 

 war. At the present time the 

 practice of canning beans in 

 convenient and attractive forms 

 is doing much to extend their 

 use. 

 According to the Twelfth Cen- 

 sus of the United States (crop 

 of 1899), Michigan is the larg- 

 est producer of commercial dried 



History. 



While beans have been grown ana 

 used for human food in various forms 

 from a very early date, the production of 

 commercial dried beans is of recent origin. 

 It is stated that in 1836 Stephen Coe brought 

 from the eastern part of New York into the 

 town of Yates, Orleans county, a single pint 

 of beans. He planted them, and from the 

 successive products of three years, his son, 

 Tunis H. Coe, in 1839 raised a small crop of 

 beans and sold a load of thirty-three bushels 

 to H. V. Prentiss, of Albion, the only man in 

 the county who could be induced to buy so 

 many. This is supposed to be the first load 

 of beans sold in western New York, and it 

 is probable that up to that time there had 

 not existed anywhere in the world an organ- 

 ized industry for producing and distributing 

 commercial dried beans. 



From this humble beginning sprang an industry 

 that has produced in the state of New York alone 

 for the last thirty years one to two million bushels 

 of beans per year. For many years the production 

 of commercial beans was confined to Orleans 

 county, but it gradually spread to other counties 

 and later was taken up in other states. This devel- 

 opment has occurred in about sixty years, but 

 during the first twenty-five years of this period 

 the production did not rise to 2 per cent of its 

 present volume. The early settlers of western New 

 York depended principally on the sale of wheat 

 for their cash income, and eastern markets were 

 largely dependent on the wheat grown in western 



Fig. 295. Flowers of the common 

 besini Phaseolus vulgaris) ^with 

 one flower opened (a) to show 

 the structure. 



of any of the 

 In the previous 

 reports of the 

 crops of 1879 and 1889, New 

 York ranked first in bean 

 production. In 1879, New 

 York produced 42.4 per cent 

 and in 1889, 35.1 per cent of 

 the total crop of the United 

 States. The weather condi- 

 tions in New York in 1899 

 were more unfavorable and 

 the bean crop was numerically small, falling to 

 26.9 per cent of the total crop of the United 

 States, while Michigan produced 35.7 per cent of 

 the same. It is asserted by dealers in beans in 

 New York that the state still leads in production 

 in normal seasons, but owing to the fact that no 



Fig. 296. 

 The common bean 

 {Phaseolus vul- 

 garis) . 



