Published by 
The Rural Publishing Co. 
333 W. 30th Street 
New York 
The Rural New Yorker 
The Business Farmer^s Paper 
Weekly, One Dollar Per Year 
Postpaid 
Single Copies, Five Cents 
VOL. LXXVI. 
NEW YORK, JULY 21, 1917, No. 44.39. 
Bean Growing in Western New York 
Use of a Bean Harvester 
N IMPORTANT CROP.—Some of the articles 
in The R. N.-Y. on bean hai’ve.sters and har¬ 
vesting beans have seemed amusing, especially the 
one advising the use of a potato digger. Field 
beans have been grown here in Livingston Co., N. 
Y., upwards of 40 years and the first bean har¬ 
vester was made by Orin Johnson, a neighbor of 
mine, over 40 years ago. This same old harvester 
was a silent witness on the winning side of several 
lawsuits for infringements brought by parties who 
had taken out patents later. This is perhaps the 
greatest bean-growing section in the world, e.special- 
ly for marrow beans, and if the man who says the 
bean harvester is not a success in any and all kinds 
of land will come into this territory next Fall, he 
can see thousands of acres of beans being pulled 
successfully with the bean harvester. I am only 
a small grower, my ci'op averaging about 20 acres 
a year, while many farmers plant r>0 to 70 acres and 
some are planting 100 and upwards this year. 
EXPENSES AND RETURNS.—With seed selling 
at $10 per bushel, it is rather a chance game to 
play, and big odds against the player, with seed 
costing $12 to $15 per acre, added to expense of 
plowing, fitting, planting, cultivating, harvesting 
and thrashing, also fertilizer if used, then delivery 
to market where they are bought at, say, $5 for G2 
pounds, deducting the number of pounds they pick 
per bushel. That is, if they pick five pounds per 
bushel and you .sell 100 bushels, 500 pounds will bo 
deducted for pick together with expense of picking, 
which may be throe cents or more per pound for 
those picked out. The cull beans are kept by the 
dealer and sold back to the farmer to be used as 
hog feed. A blind man should be able to see that 
this is not all velvet to the farmer. Last year a 
great many farmers did not have a bean to sell. 
The vines made a good growth, but no pods. This 
has occurred before, but not .so extensively. But 
suppose this should be the case this year with the 
expense of seed double that of last year. With so 
many more growers not having seed, and being 
obliged to buy, this makes the situation far more 
seriou.s. Still the government advises us to plant 
and plant and plant, and we have obeyed. What 
next? Who takes the chance? 
HOW THE WORK IS DONE.—I will try to 
tell how I handle a crop of beans. We plant them 
in rows 28 inches apart, using an 11-hoe gi’ain drill 
that plants three rows. Some use a planter that 
drops in hills, and I believe this is best on land 
that gets crusted hard, as four or five beans will 
raise the crust and come up better than one or 
two alone. I like to have the beans fairly ripe, but 
not ripe enough to shell before starting the puller. 
The puller takes two rows and i)uts them into one. 
We follow with the horse-rake, which straddles 
two of these rows with the horse walking between, 
being careful that the wheels do not run over the 
beans, as this will cause the beans to shell even 
if they are green. The wheels will crush the pods 
and they will open up and the beans roll out as 
soon as they become dry. We dump them in very 
small windrows. If the beans are heavy Ave dump 
about as fast as Ave can. Then we doul)le-rake; 
that is, we turn around when we get across the 
field and turn the windroAvs over with the rake. 
This leaves them all raked, as the rake teeth Avhen 
dumping do not get back to the ground soon 
enough to clean up all the beans, and the second 
raking does this much easier and quicker than can 
be done Avith a fork. In bunching Ave go Avith the 
Avindrows, putting them in bunches 18 to 20 inches 
high and as small as possible on the bottom and 
huA'e them stand. Beans put up in this manner are 
practically out of danger of being damaged by 
rain. It is surprising hoAV they Avill shed off the 
Avater. I have been handling them in this manner 
for many yeans, and seldom am I obliged to turn 
the bunches and then only to hurry the drying 
in some green spots in the field. The side delivery 
rake is all right if you bunch after it, but don’t 
try to keep them dry by turning Avith it as one 
Avriter states, for you Avill be up against a hard 
propo.sition In a Aveek or more of nasty weather. 
In conclusion let me say that with two good helpers 
we can pull, rake and bunch 10 acres of good beans 
in two days. Hats off to anyone who can beat it. 
New York. n. e. gray. 
Phosphate on Corn 
Good Results from Concentrated Feeding 
✓ 
N page 8.35 some one a.sks about using phos¬ 
phate on corn. After planting and having for 
years been expei’imenting along this line Avill give 
my experience. Starting Avith the desire to establish 
a strain of eight-roAv flint corn to ripen inside of 100 
days and yet carry an ear and insure a yield be¬ 
yond that obtained from Avhat is known as early 
varieties, I have been forced to study carefully this 
prol)lom of fertilization, both as regards quantity 
and character. Having a good foundation of barn 
manure Avell Avorked into the soil before planting, I. 
use 150 pounds of mixed goods carrying three per 
cent, of nitrogen, eight, at least, of phosphoric acid, 
and three of potash, in the planter Avhen planting. 
Then keeping doAvn ali weeds, and cultivating at 
least eA'ery five or six days, I apply broadcast along 
the rows, not on the corn or about the hill, 150 
pounds moi-e of the same mixture, at the last cul- 
tiA'ation, about the 20th of .Tuly, Avhen the corn 
should stand at least four feet high. Here I want 
the nitrogen chiefly from nitrate of soda in order for 
the roots to get the benefit quickly. In dry seasons 
the change in the corn Avill be readily noticed with¬ 
in a very few days. This also hastens maturity. 
We all knoAv there is no hard and fast rule in 
farm work, and that the one thing to urge is that 
every man do the very best he can, according to 
his experience, for then results are pretty sure to 
folloAA', but in the years I luvA-e settled to this prac¬ 
tice as best and most profitable. Having in a ser¬ 
ies of nine years, Avith a single exception, reached a 
yield of 100 bushels of shelled corn per acre, or 
better, I very naturally cling to the line of work 
giving such results. We must remember in fertiliz¬ 
ing that the feeding rootlets are at the extremities 
of the root sy.stem and never about the centre; 
therefore it seems advisable to scatter rather than 
concentrate the plant food. It also .seems nece.s.sary 
to urge lighter cultivation, for, after the stalks are 
eight or ten inches tall, the roots Avill meet between 
the 1‘ows. and three to four-inch cultivations Avill ser¬ 
iously disturb the feeding rootlet.s. For this reason I 
Avould say iieA^er allow the cultivator to go deei>er 
The Working Force on a New York Farm. There are 2,000 Hens, 1,000 Trees, Six Cows, and a Baby—and Ten to One the Baby gets Most Care! 
