The New York Bean Situation 
Experience of a Trying Season 
HERE seems to be quite a uumber interested in 
growing beans just at present, who are just be¬ 
ginning on this line of farming, and quite a number 
have written me since my recent article, submitting 
questions. I don't claim to know very much about 
gi-owing beans; the nidfe I have grown them the 
less I seem to know about it. One man asked if it 
Avould be advisable to follow beans after beans in a 
section of country where rye, vetch and Crimson 
clover can follow the beans, to be plowed under 
each season. This might work out all right in a 
section where it can be done, but is rather expen¬ 
sive, and would be liable to invite disease. It is not 
advisable to plant beans after beans hero in Now 
York, except on new land, and I have seen three 
good crops of marrow beans in suc¬ 
cession on land that had never been 
plowed before. The general prac¬ 
tice here is to seed wheat after 
beans, and seed the wheat to clover 
and Timothy. This rotation gives 
a crop of beans, wheat and hay for 
one plowing, so if the farm contains 
150 acres of plowland we can have 50 
acres of beans, 50 acres of wheat and 
50 acres of hay every year by only 
plowing 50 acres each year. All the 
.straw, bean pods and hay are used in 
feeding sheep and cattle through the 
Winter, which makes plenty of ma¬ 
nure to maintain the fertility of the- 
land, so that if tlie season is right the 
crop is assured unless disease or in¬ 
sect i)ests interfere. 
Some have stated that they are in 
rather a damp section and ask if it 
would not be advisal)le to make foun¬ 
dation for bunches. To this I will 
say that any land that will grow 
beans is not too damp to bunch them 
on, as beans will not grow on wet 
land. It might be advisable to make 
foundation if you are in a warmer 
climate than New York, as warm, wet 
weather will damage the beans sooner 
than cool weather, and then you 
could make much larger bunches. 
However, I should advise putting 
them up in bunches, as I have stjited, 
and not bother with anj’ foundation. 
With us, harvesting and curing 
beans causes little worry, but the 
growing has us guessing. In this sec¬ 
tion over one-half the crop was 
di-owned after planting, and the bal¬ 
ance is badly affected Avith root rot 
cau.sed by too much rain. I have 12 
acres that aie nearly ruined, and I 
shall be pleased if I get 100 bu.shels 
from 20 acres. Some have turned 
.stock on their beau fields, and many 
more might as well. Livingston 
County has a good crop of wheat and 
oats; quite a lot of both are still 
stiuding in the .shock. This is A’ery 
unusual in September for this local¬ 
ity. With help at $3 and board, twine 
$22 per hundred, thrashing eight 
per bushel, Avhen it usually was three cents; fer¬ 
tilizer $10 per ton above former pi-ices, maehineiy 
still higher, will $2 wheat keep the farmer’s head 
above water? n. e. okay. 
New York, 
A Western Farmer on Wheat 
HERE has been a great deal of discussion lately 
in regard to saving food, and especially bread. 
These food experts tell the Western farmers to raise 
more chickens, and at the same time tell him not to 
feed them wheat, and this in a country where the only 
gi-ain raised, or that can be raised at a profit, is 
wheat. Then they are drafting into the army all 
the young able-bodied and experienced help that the 
Western* farmer has. They tell him he must get 
along with older and younger help. They advise 
using the schoolboys. Then they say the women 
must be very careful and .save every scrap, and not 
to waste a piece of bread. That part is good advice 
at any time, but let us .see how the other works out. 
A man who has experience, and is very careful, in 
the Western harvest fields, will waste some grain. 
An experienced man who is not careful will waste a 
good deal, ^\^lat would we do with the schoolboys 
and others who do not know the first thing about 
harvesting here iu the West? They would waste 
RURAL NEW-YORKER 
more bread here in the Western fields than all the 
Avomen in the United States could possibly save. 
Not only at harvest, but during the Avhole year, we 
need men Avho are u.sed to the Avork; men Avho can 
drive from six to Ifi horses, and do any kind of 
Avork on the ranch. Tfiiey need not necessarily be 21 
years old, for I have seen boys of 14 here (avIio have 
been brought iip to tliis kind of Avork) do better 
than a good many Avho Avere older. Rut to take our 
best help from the ranches and give us boys from 
towns and cities, I. W. W.’s and anything we can 
pick up, will ceriainly not produce the big crop for 
1918 that the people are looking for and expecting. 
I am doing the best I can; Avill have in three 
times as much AAdieat next year as I had this. There 
is another thing. The young men are Avilling to 
fight for their'country and ready to go, but they .see 
no reason Avhy they should fight the married men's 
battles for them. I hear a good deal of this talk 
among the boys, and I don’t knoAV that we can blame 
them any. Life is just as sweet to them (perhaps 
sweeter in a good many cases) than it is to one 
who is married. Of course our Go\’ernmeut is do¬ 
ing Avhat they think Avill be liest for all concerned 
during this Avar. They may make mistakes. We all 
do. We farmers have paid our harvest help at the 
rate of $2.50 per bu.shel for our Avheat. We have 
paid exorbitant prices for our machinery and all re- 
paii's. This has all been paid. But it does not look 
as though Ave Avould get the $2.50. Rut the Govern¬ 
ment is going to cut doAvn the prices of these things 
to the farmer. When, I Avonder? He has paid for 
them this year, so there is no hurry, and I am afraid 
ne.vt year’s itric-es Avill be even higher. It looks that 
way just noAV. 
Well, Ml’. Hoover, A\e sure do hate to feed Avheat 
to our chickens, but you say raise more chickens. 
And Ave don’t like to buy corn from our neighbors in 
the Middle West at the present price of corn, and 
then pay the railroads for hauling it out here and 
then pay them again for hauling our Avheat back 
thei'e. No, Ave can’t rai.se it. We have to Summer- 
falloAV and use tAvo years’ moisture to produce one 
crop of Avheat. No, aax‘ don't need advice. We’v’e 
laid 15 years’ experience in this country, and have 
1105 
just learned that Ave can raise one crop in Iavo years. 
Ao more. o. s. goruon. 
Washington. 
Spontaneous Combustion *in Clover and 
Alfalfa 
HERE is always more or less talk about sponta¬ 
neous combustion as a cause of fire on the farm. 
Some people claim there is no such thing, and that 
fires are never started .spontaneously. circular 
from the Iowa Agricultural College at Ames take.s * 
up this subject thoroughly. It seems that during the 
past five years there Iuia’c been 059 tii’es in loAva all 
due to spontaneous combustion, most of them appai’- 
ently breaking out in stacks of hay or in hay stored 
in the barn. This bulletin states that “combustion” 
is really burning. It is a kind of oxidation. Avhich 
means the uniting of .a substance Avith 
oxygen. In ordinary burning this 
oxygen comes from the air, and is a 
rapid combustion shoAving heat and 
flame, but this combustion ma’' dso 
be much sIoaa'ci’ and '..''t'! ,i smaller 
production of heat and'~ no tliiine. 
Combustion Jiiay be started by causes 
Avhich are outside the burned .sub¬ 
stance, or by causes Avhich are Avithin. 
Spontaneous combustion comes from 
causes Avhich are AA'ithin a substance. 
There are three kinds of material 
Which are s])ecially subject to spon¬ 
taneous combustion, q’he.se are hay, 
coal, and the .so-called drying oils. 
It seems that cloA’cr and Alfalfa 
hays are most likely to be burned in 
this Avay. That is probably due to 
the fact that the steins of this ])lant 
do not dry out as easily as the finer 
stems of the gra.s.ses. WheneA-er hay 
of any kind is put in the stack or 
moAv too greiiii, or Avhen it is Avet 
AAdth dcAV or rain, it Avill shoAV some 
heating. Then if the mass is largo 
enough to retain most of the heat, 
and there is moisture enough to start 
a lively fermentation, the heating 
may go on until the mass bui’sts into 
flame. Thus in order to produce this 
combustion there must be moisture 
in the hay, and large enough bulk to 
retain heat, and A’ontilation enough to 
bring in air to provide oxygen. 
Various causes have been figured 
out to shoAV hoAV this combustion 
starts. Fermentation was fonnerly 
considered the explanation. This bul¬ 
letin states, hoAvever, that raising the 
temperature of the hay above the 
point where living cells are destroyed, 
Avould pi-event combustion. The.se 
cells ai’o killed or made inactive at a 
temperature from 120° to 150°. Runi- 
ing in the hay Avould not begin until it 
reached a temperature of about 400°. 
The most reasonable explanation of 
tlie manner in Avhich the temiK'rature 
of hay is raised to the ignition or kiiul- 
liug temperature, ba.sed on the experi¬ 
ments of various investigators is as fol¬ 
lows : The process is begun by fei’men- 
tation, in Avhieh bacteria and plant-cell 
respiration both play a part. The fer¬ 
mentation may raise the temperature to about 135° 
Fahrenheit. When the hay becomes as hot as this, the 
rate of the oxidation is greatly increased. The heat 
thus produced raises the tem 7 >erature still higher, and 
the oxidation processes then go on still more rapidly. 
In the neighborhood of 200° Fahrenheit the hay Avill 
begin to char. Experiments have shown that chai’coal 
Avill ab.sorb a great deal of oxygen from the air. Natur¬ 
ally this assists the oxidation which goes on still more 
rapidly. Not all hay which becomes charred reaches 
the kindling temperature. This may be because not 
enough oxygen from the air reaches it. It has been said 
that in a A'ery tightly built hay-mow with the floor and 
siding made with well-matched boards, combustion may 
perhaps be prevented by keeping out the necessary sup¬ 
ply of ail’. 
We liaA'e knoAVii ca.ses Avbere farmers found the 
haymow to be growing hot. Beiug afraid of burn¬ 
ing, they began to throw out the hay or cut holOvS 
doAA'n into it. This Avas the worst thing they could 
do, as this brought the air to the inside of the moAV, 
Avhich Avas evidently smouldering, and this air pro¬ 
vided the oxygen necessary to make the air burst 
into flame. Flooding the haymoAV Avith water, if 
that Avere possible, AA’ould reduce the temperature, 
and also cut off ventilation, but Avhen the hay be¬ 
comes A’ery hot the Avorst thing you can do is to try 
to throAA' it out or cut into it so as to let in more 
air. It is rarely possible to saA’e the barn or stack 
Avhen the inside of the pile gets so hot as to begin 
to char, us It fre(iuently does. The use of salt on 
Thrashing Wheat in West Virginia. Fig. 511 
Cutting the Crop of Roadside Weeds. Fig. 512 
