II/- 
Noveinber 3, 
In the Legislature of 1903 the Farmers’ Alliance 
became the Farmers' Association. 1 >r. George Aus¬ 
tin Bowen was its first president. No president has 
ever served two terms. The 1913 president is Repre¬ 
sentative Ariel Mitehelson, a tobacco farmer and a 
Republican, and the secretary is Representative 
Fred C. Jones, also a tobacco farmer, but a Demo¬ 
crat. 
To detail the history of the association through 
the sessions since it was born would be to catalogue 
the distinctive legislation which has come out of 
each session, for its part in making laws to meet the 
big problems which have confronted the State in the 
last 19 or a dozen years has been plain all the time. 
Not only does this mean agricultural legislation—• 
such as those affecting cattle, sheep, dogs, bees, in¬ 
creased appropriations for the State college and for 
agricultural societies and movements, and the like— 
or that along lines which directly affect the farmer 
—such as large good roads appropriations, deer and 
game laws and automobile legislation—hut the big 
matters, a public utilities commission, trial by jury 
in damage cases, workman's compensation and em¬ 
ployer's liability acts, the pure food and net weight 
laws, and railroad, trolley and telephone laws and all 
the rest. 
The association has been recognized by two Presi¬ 
dents and has memorialized Congress and has gained 
note far from its home State, hut it is in the Con¬ 
necticut Legislature that its work is done. Connec¬ 
ticut has 168 towns and 18 of these are cities, and 
these cities hold more than 63 per cent j of the pop¬ 
ulation of the State, a population not only utterly 
out of sympathy with the country towns, but with 
its predominating elements today, foreign-born or 
Ihe children of foreign-born parents, perfectly incap¬ 
able of ever reaching their viewpoint. The legisla¬ 
tors may not he of this class, but they are swayed 
by these masses. 
Nor has the Farmers’ Association found the task 
difficult. In the 1913 House 99 of the 258 members 
registered as. farmers. More than 50 others come 
from the same or other of the smaller towns which 
may fairly be called farming communities, though 
some of them have a certain amount of manufactur¬ 
ing or industrial business in their village. The 99 
pure 4 farmers come from SO towns, and while not all 
of those towns, by any means, have two representa¬ 
tives apiece, in every case where there are two they 
represent the same constituents. That goes far 
enough to show where the association gets its ma¬ 
jority of the House from men who can be welded 
together through it as the rural vote. 
The speaker of the 1913 House is a farmer. Morris 
C. Webster, a man who has spent much time in the 
City of New Britain and has even been its mayor. 
And among the Farmers’ Association legislators are 
plenty of men well able to hold their own on the 
floor of the House. The result is, in a word, that 
whatever gains the distrust or the disapproval of the 
Farmers’ Association is very unlikely to become 
law, though frequently modifications and com 
promises preserve to the statutes whatever of value 
there may be in the proposition. j. o. h. 
HARVESTING AND THRASHING SOY BEANS. 
One of the greatest problems that has arisen in 
growing Soy beans for seed, has been the harvesting 
and thrashing, particularly the former. Reports 
from many sections of the country show that there 
have been great losses exq>erienced in harvesting 
the beans, though several methods have been em¬ 
ployed. Many also report indifferent success in 
thrashing the beans with the ordinary grain- 
thrasher. even though the machines have been modi¬ 
fied in several ways to keep from splitting the beans. 
Seed to be put on the market at the highest price 
must he good. . A small proportion of split beans 
will hurt the sale and are almost impossible to re¬ 
move, except by hand-picking, which is a slow and 
expensive process. Again, if the harvesting methods 
are such that a considerable proportion of the seed 
is lost in the operation, the profits may be materially 
reduced. 
In most localities the tools that have been used 
in harvesting are the mower with side-delivery at¬ 
tachment, the self-rake reaper, and the self-hinder. 
There is no doubt that any of these tools will do 
good work, provided the beans are varieties that 
have long stalks with the pods high above the 
ground. However, it is not always possible to 
choose a variety that will answer for harvesting 
conditions, and at the same time be the one best 
suited for a given locality. It seems best to select 
the variety that will give the highest success for 
the locality and fix upon a machine that will give 
good results under all conditions as to variety and 
ripeness. 
I harvested 40 acres of Ito San beaus last 
T H 1L RURAL NEW-YORKER 
year and have just completed this season's crop of 
30 acres. The Ito San is a small variety with a 
short main stalk, and bearing pods very close to the 
ground, but it is one of the best for a short season 
or as a second crop, as it is a very quick grower and 
early maturing. The beans were grown in rows 28 
inches apart, and as the soil is rather heavy the 
cultivation tended to leave the ground level lower 
between (he rows. In other words, the row was on 
a little ridge. With the reaper and mower the 
knives could not he lowered sufficiently, so that 
some of the lower pods would he left on the stalks, 
while others would be cut in half, causing a con¬ 
siderable loss. Also much trouble was had in the 
knives running in the ground, due the uneven sur¬ 
face referred to above. This was especially the 
case with the mower. Again, where there were any 
stones the cutting-bar of the mower would jump 
Machine For Harvesting Beans. Fig. -144. 
through the heavy podded portions of the plant, 
shelling many of the beans. 
The illustration. Fig. 444. shows the machine with 
which I have harvested practically all of the 70 acres 
of Soy beans with a loss that would average far below 
one per cent. Some of the fields were ideal in soil 
conditions, and free from weeds, while others were 
extremely stony and full of Summer grass. In all 
cases the beans were harvested successfully with 
no loss of shattering. Losses due to shattering have 
been reported as high as 50 per cent. This machine 
is the bean harvester that is used in the bean grow¬ 
ing sections of Western New York and will be found 
the best tool to harvest the Soy bean, under all 
conditions. The main construction of this machine 
is the two long knives which run under the ground 
and with a diagonal, drawing motion pull the plants 
from the ground. The rods above the knives gather 
the two rows and leave them in the centre in a win- 
Machine at Work in Beans. Fig. 445. 
row from which they may be put in bunches with 
a fork. By using caution and working while the 
beans are tough in the mornings, the side delivery 
rake may he used to gather the beans into larger 
windrows and save a great deal of labor in the 
bunching. 
It will readily la 1 seen that while there is a great 
deal of shaking and jarring with the mower and 
reaper, with the bean harvester there is none. It 
is merely a lifting and sliding motion and the pods 
are hardly disturbed. Those who are raising Soy¬ 
beans will find this machine a great saver of loss 
from shattering when it comes to the time of har¬ 
vesting. The main thing to keep in mind when 
operating this machine is to set the knives just deep 
enough to lift the stalks. One notch too shallow 
will peimit the knives to slide over the beans, whit' 
one too deep will leave large amounts of soil with 
the stalks and make them very hard to handle. A 
careful driver should harvest from six to eight 
acres in a day with no hurry or waste. In thrash¬ 
ing Soy beaus, if the very best quality of seed is de¬ 
sired. they should be thrashed with a regular bean 
thrasher. There are many kinds on the market from 
very simple to highly complicated ones, hut all have 
in common, the slower speed cylinder than the grain 
thrasher with fewer teeth and wider spaces be¬ 
tween them, and the concave teeth. The higher- 
priced machines also have a second cylinder three 
or four feet in rear of the first one. This cylinder 
runs at twice the speed of the first and rethrasher; 
the straw. Unless the beans are very dry and uni¬ 
form in ripeness they will not all thrash out when 
going through the first cylinder; thus the tougher 
ones will be thrashed by the second cylinder. A 
bean machine can he bought for from about ,$300 to 
$600. depending upon the size and the amount of 
extra rigging. The latter is not necessary for the 
Soy beans as for the beans which have to he pre¬ 
pared for eating purposes. It will he seen from the 
above that the cost of the bean thrasher should not 
prohibit its use. Bought as a neighborhood invest¬ 
ment the cost to any individual would not be great 
and the return in improved seed would be imme¬ 
diate. I. L. OWEN. 
New Jersey. 
A CITY SALE FOR APPLES. 
Your paper contains so many articles about peo¬ 
ple who have been cheated, and so many people seem 
to he at a loss about selling or where to sell, that I 
thought maybe I could be of some help to some of 
the apple growers. Fort Wayne has always been 
a good apple market, but especially so the past few 
years. I don't mean for anything big like New York, 
but the home consumption is heavy and the pro¬ 
duction light. Every year I have numerous orders 
I cannot fill from my own apples; they run from 
one to eight or 10 bushels, and for these I can get 
a good price. Then I am well acquainted with the 
retail grocery and fruit stand trade and to these I 
could sell a lot more apples if I had them. 
Now I have my own wagon and horse, and could 
either rent a place or store in a fine concrete stor¬ 
age. Each day from now until Spring I could sell 
and deliver apples and get the cash on delivery. 
Where the apples are shipped in barrels I could get 
a little higher price by breaking the barrels into 
bushels. I would not do any credit business. I 
would have some order blanks, making a carbon 
copy or two, and when I set the apples into a 
man's store I would go away with the money. What 
do you think of the scheme, and do you know anyone 
with apples to sell? H. ii. 
Indiana. 
R. N.-Y.—In theory the scheme is a good one. 
Sooner or later just such plans will he worked out, 
and the producer will learn to have confidence in 
the city salesman. Any man will be justified in 
making a full investigation of a stranger. Probably 
the average farmer to begin with might be more 
suspicions of "H. H.” than he would be of a com¬ 
mission man. It will be hard to start such a plan, 
but after it once got going we believe that both 
H. H. and the apple grower could make some money 
and leave the latter more than he could get on com¬ 
mission. All these things show how both farmers 
and city fieople are thinking about this 35-cent dol¬ 
lar. and planning ways of enlarging *it. They win 
not all work out, but some of them will, and the 
only way to make them practical is to discuss them. 
CO-OPERATIVE DEALING IN WOOL. 
Your publication of the wool manufacturer’s letter 
on page 910 brings hope to one despairing farm at 
least. Does this manufacturer realize that we who 
know what old-fashioned products were like cannot 
buy, at any price, such mittens and stockings "as 
Grandma used to make” and we have no more ot the 
local spinners and knitters who supplied us 10 years 
ago? Our county association, backed up by the local 
Granges, should he ample organization for the buy¬ 
ing of small lots of wool and shipping direct to the 
manufacturer. Indeed, it is already a question in 
this locality, for we must raise more sheep now that 
scarcity of labor makes dairying so difficult. I can 
remember great holidays in this village after shear¬ 
ing and packing. The payments at the packing shed 
in the village were all in gold, hut we would rather 
see "good honest all-wool stockings, gloves or leg¬ 
gings” to-day. 
Not only shoddy has hurt the machine-made prod¬ 
ucts, but the fashionable demand for silky appear¬ 
ance of the woven surface has changed the old-time 
methods of good spinning. Some manufacturer lias 
