CULTURAL DIRECTIONS 
241 
ginia. The pickers of snap or string beans are generally 
paid a definite amount a basket. 
Field beans were formerly harvested by pulling, but 
the special harvesters now employed materially reduce 
the cost of this operation. L. C. Corbett (United States 
Department of Agriculture, Farmers’ Bulletin 289, p. 
14) describes it as follows: “This implement is built on 
the principle of a pair of shears, and consists of two long 
steel blades mounted upon a strong framework carried 
upon wheels. The long shearlike blades are set to cut 
the roots of the plants just beneath the surface of the 
FIG. 6l. PICKING STRING BEANS AT NORFOLK, VIRGINIA 
ground. Above these blades guard rods or guide rods 
are so arranged as to move from their original positions 
the plants whose roots have been severed and, since the 
implement is designed to cut two rows of beans across 
the field, the plants of two rows are thrown together in 
a single windrow. This clears space for the passage of 
one of the animals in the team, so that it is necessary for 
only one to pass through the standing crop, thus de- 
creasing the amount of loss by shelling which would result 
from both animals being driven through the standing crop.” 
