18 The Colorado Experiment Station 
irrigated lands. This bean straw is capable of utilization. Espe¬ 
cially on the dry lands every bit of bean straw should be saved and 
fed. Enough experience has already been obtained to indicate 
that on the dry lands if bean straw is fed with silage that it will 
return a food value nearly as great as alfalfa. If the bean straw 
is fed with other dry feeds, it is not as valuable as alfalfa. In 
fact, it appears to return about one-half the feeding value if fed 
with dry feeds, and almost as much as alfalfa when fed with suc¬ 
culent feeds. The utilization of bean straw, therefore, constitutes 
a very material addition to the feed supply under dry land con¬ 
ditions. 
BEANS IN ROTATION 
Under irrigated conditions, beans furnish an opportunity for 
a cultivated cash crop, which is their chief value in irrigated ro¬ 
tations. Some types of weed pests can only be cleaned up where 
a cultivated crop can be introduced. Beans furnish such a crop, 
which may not only be cultivated, but hoed. On the dr)^ lands, 
however, beans have a still greater value, because they furnish a 
cash cultivated crop well adapted for dry lands and capable of 
returning very good money values, dry-land possibilities consid¬ 
ered. It has been found by experience that wheat, after a bean 
crop which has been well cultivated, will yield as well as after 
summer tillage or a summer fallow. Since they will usually pay 
well for growing, beans may be produced on lands which in many 
cases would be without a crop. 
On the dry lands beans have a tendency to build up the soil. 
If the bean straw is fed to livestock and the manure properly ap¬ 
plied to the land, the beans will be a decided, positive asset. If 
bean growing is a part of the regular farming system, the beans 
themselves should be grown in rotation. There are many bean dis¬ 
eases which tend to not only reduce the yield of beans, but to re¬ 
duce their salability. One of the best methods of fighting these 
diseases is to, plant beans in rotation, that is, never plant beans, 
two years in succession upon the same land. At least two or three 
years should intervene in order that the land may not become in¬ 
oculated with the diseases which afifect the bean crop. 
IMPROVEMENT OF PINTO BEANS BY SELECTION 
The greater proportion of the planting of pinto beans has 
been done with little or no seed selection. Sufficient experimen¬ 
tal work has been done to show that as much progress may be 
made from selection with pinto beans as is sometimes done with 
corn in the corn belt. The bean plants are mostly self-fertilized, 
thus, if a good strain is once obtained, no further selection within 
