8 
The: Colorado Experiment Station 
In most Colorado sections this will be the last week in May or 
early in June. Successful plantings have been made as late as the 
first week in July, but the grower is tempting fate too much to 
make a practice of such planting, as frosts are likely to occur as 
early as the 25th of August. 
While pinto beans and some of the teparies and a few of the 
Mexican and Indian varieties have been matured in 60 days or 
less, it normally takes about 90 days to mature a crop even for 
these short-season beans. In those seasons when frosts hold off 
until late in the fall, late planting will often make a crop, but 
frosts do not always hold off until late. 
Method of Planting .—If there is any considerable acreage of 
beans to be put in, a bean planter should be procured, or a corn 
planter with bean plates. In Colorado beans should always be 
planted in drills so that the bean planters or corn planter should 
be so arranged as to drill the seed one in a place. It is possible 
to make use of a grain drill by stopping up the proper number of 
holes, in fact, many beans are successfully planted with such an 
implement. The type of grain drill having a revolving cup feed 
is adapted for this kind of planting. 
Most of our grain drills have 7 or 8 inches between the drill 
holes. Stopping up three drill holes would therefore plant 28 
inches apart, which is about right for irrigated planting. With a 7- 
inch drill, stopping up five holes, that is, leaving open the first and 
sixth drill, would plant 42 inches apart, which is about right for 
dry land. Some dry lands are strong enough to justify planting 36 
inches apart. Stopping up four drill holes, leaving the first and 
fifth open, would plant 35 inches apart, which is about right. 
Under irrigated conditions the rows should be about 28 inches 
apart. On dry lands, they should be from about 3 to Zy 2 feet apart. 
Under very dry conditions it is sometimes advisable to plant 7 
feet apart and cultivate all of the intervening space. For irrigated 
conditions the drill should be thick enough to make one plant 
every 4 to 6 inches. This will require around 30 to 35 pounds per 
acre of seed for pinto beans. It will require a greater number 
of pounds for larger beans and a somewhat smaller number of 
pounds for the small pea beans. 
For dry land conditions beans ^should, under normal condi¬ 
tions, be planted in rows about 3y feet apart and in drills in the 
row 10 to 12 inches apart. If dry land conditions are a little se¬ 
vere, or uncertain, the space can be made a little further in the 
drills, say from 12 to 16 inches. According to the rate of drilling, 
it would take from 8 to 20 pounds of seed to plant an acre under 
dry land conditions. For an average planting, probably about 15 
