BEANS THAT DON’T BLIGHT 
ADOLPH KRUHM 
P, 
|OST Bean patches may be likened to a factory working 
on a twenty-five to fifty per cent, production basis; and 
in this case it is not the fault of the factory but of the 
person who manages it. 
In common with most vegetables. Beans are just healthy 
weeds. They thrive best if left alone — especially during wet or 
damp weather. Scores of times during the last twenty years 
have I “ shouted ” the warning to other gardeners “ don’t disturb 
Bean vines when they are wet”; and have, perhaps, been very 
rarely understood. 
The Bean plant — I am specifically referring to the Bush Bean, 
green or wax-podded — has no inherent physical defects. I he 
foliage, however, affords a congenial breeding 
and nesting place for several fungous diseases 
Three of these cause 99 per cent, of all the 
failures with Beans and, for the sake of 
brevity, it pleases our gardeners to call 
all of them “ blight ”. 
Anthracnose, bean rust, and bean leaf 
blotch are the three most prevailing 
fungous diseases of Beans. The last 
two are never a serious menace ex- 
cept during exceptionally wet sea- 
sons, and the best way to control them 
is to give a preventive spraying or two 
with bordeaux mixture. 
Anthracnose or Bean spot disease is 
an entirely different proposition. [In re- 
ferring to anthracnose as blight, Mr. Kruhm 
but adopts a popular fallacy. Bean blight 
proper has not prevailed to any extent in this 
country during the past decade. — Editor.] The PICKING TIME 
To enjoy growing Beans to the fullest extent, it is well to bear 
in mind three things: buy seeds from reliable sources; do some 
preventive spraying with bordeaux mixture; select varieties that 
bring with them such sturdy constitutions as to be naturally 
disease resistant. 
Most Desirable Varieties for the Home Patch 
IS an established fact that, in exact ratio as a Bean variety 
becomes improved in table qualities — brittleness, stringless- 
ness, and productiveness — it also becomes afflicted with a more 
delicate constitution. This holds good of many of our most pedi- 
greed Bush Beans; the exceptions to this are the 
leaders that deserve first consideration in select- 
ing varieties for your home garden. 
have before me a frank expression of 
opinion on this subject from one of 
America’s foremost Bean specialists. It 
proves the above assertion in that it 
gives first place in blight and disease 
resistance to Hudson Wax, a sort that 
has a wonderful constitution, makes 
a strong growth, and bears loads of 
the handsomest pods you ever saw. 
But — it also has the handsomest, 
toughest string ever put in a bean, 
and for this reason, in my opinion, is 
absolutely unfit for the home garden. 
Keeney’s Rustless Golden Wax is, per- 
haps, the most reliable of the yellow-podded 
dwarfs, carrying disease resistance in extraordi- 
nary measure. Its short pods, however, do not 
fungus is 
carried in embryo in the seeds when 
planted, hence the need of securing Bean seeds from 
reliable sources. Diseased seeds may easily be 
picked out from any infected lot since they are generally 
marked with small, dark brown spots which are slightly de- 
pressed or sunken into the outside coat of the dry bean. An 
hour’s soaking in a formalin solution (1 part formalin to 200 of 
water) will prove a great preventive of this disease; but why go 
to all this trouble when pure uninfected seeds from the best 
houses may be bought at 50 cents per pound? 
The important thing to remember about all three of these 
“blights” to your hopes for big Bean crops is that in ninety 
cases out of a hundred you will not be troubled with them, if 
you give your Bean patch a wide berth while the foliage is wet. 
1 1 makes no difference, whether the moist condition of the foliage 
is due to rain, fog, dew or your own irrigation, the very fact that 
it is moist furnishes the ideal condition for the fungus spores to 
travel. 
Long periods of humid, moist weather have spelled the death 
of many a row of Beans, even without interference on the part 
of the gardener. Insects, animals, even wind splashing about 
the rain drops, act as agents to carry the trouble from plant to 
plant. While wet weather, therefore, is not responsible for the 
diseases, it is during wet periods that conditions are ideal for both 
development and spread of the fungus spores. 
Any day but a wet 
one; then keep away! 
compare in size with those of the more beautiful 
Sure Crop Wax nor of Round Podded Hardy Wax. 
By the very appearance of their thick, leathery, 
dark green foliage both of these tell that they are ideally 
qualified for home garden use. 
Among the green-podded sorts, I am glad to be able to men- 
tion Bountiful as first in disease resistance. This is due, perhaps 
to its parentage. Those of you who, in years gone by, grew 
Long Yellow Six Weeks, will understand that this parentage 
alone represents a strong constitution. 
Next to Bountiful stands Dwarf Horticultural and, while 
there is a stringless strain (very rare as yet), I believe that, ex- 
cept for cool, northern sections, no strain of Horticultural will 
ever be popular. The pods are not good looking! 
On the other hand, hail to the day when we will see a stringless 
strain of Sutton’s Masterpiece. Truly a masterpiece in every 
way: beautiful, bountiful, disease resistant, yielding an abundant 
crop of handsome 8 to 9 inch pods — but with a string to every 
one of them! While still young enough to be less than 5 inches 
long, Masterpiece is perfectly stringless and when 6 inches long, 
compares favorably with Bountiful. To make it ideal, however, 
the string will have to be eliminated from the full-grown product. 
Who will do it? Here is a chance for the person who is inter- 
ested in the improvement of varieties to render a service not 
only to the advancement of science but to the housewife as well. 
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