146 
to loosely cover the flowers without cramping. 
A grade known as “Rawhide” has given 
especial satisfaction to the United States 
Department of Agriculture. The sack 
may be tied, wired, or pinned upon the 
branch; being careful to gather the bottom 
edge closely around the branch. 
Ordinarily they should be removed as 
soon as possible after danger from outside 
pollination has passed. If left upon the 
limb the foliage and fruit are more apt to 
become diseased, and plant lice are especially 
liable to do harm. As long as there is danger 
of a frost, however, leave the sacks on. I 
prefer to remove them immediately after 
the petals have dropped from the tree and 
to spray very thoroughly with Bordeaux 
mixture and an arsenite. Some workers 
find it an advantage to leave the bags on 
apple and pear crosses for three weeks, or 
until the first brood of codling moths has 
gone. If manila sacks are fastened on with 
the label wire, they may be merely torn 
Remarkable Evolution in Garden Beans—By E. D. Darlington, = 
netting sacks. 
THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 
open, not removed. ‘The bags are best left 
on grapes until the fruit is ripe. .. 
To prevent depredations by birds and to 
catch any fruits that drop prematurely, 
crossed fruits may be covered with mosquito 
This should: not be done 
until the fruits approach maturity. 
When pollination operations are €onducted 
on a very large scale and complete accuracy 
is not absolutely necessary, it is sometimes 
expedient to dispense with sacks altogether. 
Professor N. E. Hansen writes: “I am 
getting away more and more from using 
sacks. I try to avoid removing the stamens, 
but apply the pollen early enough so there is 
no danger from self-fertilization.”’ 
THE PERCENTAGE OF SUCCESSES 
This is extremely variable and depends 
upon many factors, including the skill of the 
worker; but the results of several men are 
interesting as indicating about what may be 
expected. Seven men of considerable ex- 
APRIL, 1908 
perience place their average of successes in 
crossing fruit at 50, 50, 50, 45, 10, 10, and 
2 per cent. respectively and their best results 
have been 100, 95, 84, 60, 50, 30, and 14 
per cent. respectively. 
From 10,405 apple, pear, and peach 
blossoms cross-pollinated at the Michigan 
Agricultural College in 1906, 1,946 fruits set, 
or a little over 17 per cent. This means 
that a tremendous amount of work must be 
done in the very short space of time when the 
trees are in blossom; and one is likely to see 
no results from much of it. There are 
bound to be many failures; occasionally 
there may be successes of go to 100 per cent. 
when only a few blossoms are pollinated. 
But pollination work,.though more uncertain 
and often more discouraging than many 
other lines of experimental horticulture, 
has a fascination that of itself is fully as 
much reward to the horticulturist as the 
improved varieties that are frequently 
secured by this means. 
Pennsyl- 
THE TRANSITION FROM THE FLAT, STRONG-FLAVORED FIBROUS KINDS THAT HAD TO BE EATEN VERY YOUNG TO 
THE QUALITY BEANS OF TO-DAY, WITH THICK FLESHY PODS AND NO STRINGS, THAT CAN BE USED IN ANY STAGE 
jee older beans (practically all those 
which have come to us from Europe 
and are grown as snap-shorts) have a dis- 
tinctly stronger flavor than the newer 
American varieties. They also havea less 
fleshy, flat pod with a fibrous membrane 
(known among seedsmen as “muslin”) and 
well marked “‘strings” along the lines of union 
of the two halves of the pod. The muslin 
is less noticeable as the season or location 
is cooler, and thus this type of bean, grown 
from Philadelphia southward, does not begin 
to compare in quality with the same bean 
grown northward. At the same time, these 
wax or yellow flat-podded bush beans are generally 
fieshier than green pods (Wardwell’s Kidney wax) 
tougher varieties are largely grown for mar- 
ket in the South, because they stand shipping 
better. The Europeans prefer the strong- 
flavored type of bean, but they gather the 
pods while yet very small and tender. The 
modern, round-podded, fleshier, mild-fla- 
vored bean has the muslin and strings re- 
duced to almost nothing, and the pod so 
swollen with succulent flesh that what was 
the line of the string becomes an infolded 
crease. 
This type, produced by selection from the 
old type, is variously termed “‘saddle-back,” 
“fat-horse,” and “‘double-barrel,”’ and in the 
finest selections retains the fleshiness and 
freedom from strings even when the pods 
have developed well-formed grains or seed. 
The strings of the bean can usually be 
detected by observing the point of the pod at 
the flower end. If thisis extended rigidly, the 
probabilities are that the pod is distinctly 
stringy; if this is flaccid and inclined at an 
angle, it may reasonably be expected that 
the ped is practically stringless. But the 
home gardener will find it much easier to 
break the pod ! 
Beans may be considered under three 
main heads according to the method of their 
use. First, those in which the young pods 
are used either as snap-shorts, or sliced (as 
in the case of the scarlet runner). Second, 
shell beans, the grain being removed from 
the pod and used green, the lima being 
the most popular type. Third, those of 
which the dry seed is shelled and stored for 
winter supply. Limas and some of the 
other beans, such as the Horticultural and 
Boston Favorite, are used thus. There are 
both tall and bush or dwarf forms in each of 
these divisions, and in some few cases a 
variety is adapted for use in all three ways. 
The dwarf or bush beans (14 to 24 feet 
high), give the earliest yields and for that 
reason are very popular for market crops 
as well as for the home garden. 
The tall, or pole kinds (with vine-like 
stems, which needa trellis or stake support), 
are preferred for late summer supply, either 
for shelling or for snap-shorts, and also as 
shell beans for winter, because they can be 
very conveniently grown by planting in the 
hills of corn, when the stalks of the latter 
are used as support for the bean vines. 
As a general rule the bush beans and the 
semi-dwarf varieties of the tall beans are 
Often a single plant 
will carry fifty to seventy-five pods 
The round podded wax bean. 
