i8 The Colorado Experiment Station 
MARKETING 
One of the most important problems in the marketing of beans 
is to have a clean, high-grade, uniform product. Mixed beans, with 
discolored, broken beans, seriously dock the price. Since the pinto 
outyields most other beans in practically all the Colorado bean-grow¬ 
ing sections, it should constitute the chief market bean. 
Machine-cleaned pintos will usually sell on the market within 
a cent of the price asked for hand-picked navies. The actual net 
return on pintos will usually be higher than for navies, because the 
cost of cleaning is not so great and the rejections under good market 
conditions are a great deal less. 
In abnormal years, like 1916, buyers will take almost any kind 
of a bean, but even in 1916 buyers were paying a premium for uniform 
lots of clean, well-graded pintos. In some localities pintos are handled 
in bulk. Where this is true a uniform grade and cleanness should pre¬ 
vail in the bulk delivered. Many bean markets, however, require that 
the beans be bagged for shipment. Where such is the case, the beans 
should be thoroly cleaned and graded. Uniform, standard quality 
should be bagged in bags of uniform size and marking . The maMv- 
ing suggested is ^Too Pounds Colorado Pintos”. The remaininj^ 
marking can specify the grower and address when so desired. 
Growers will be able to receive much better prices where a uni¬ 
form product is produced and where the entire neighborhood is grow¬ 
ing one kind of bean. This is due to the fact that the marketing costs 
are lower under such conditions. 
With the exception of one season, Colorado pintos have netted 
the growers around 4 to 4^4 cents for the past eight or ten years 
In 1916, prices much higher than this prevailed. But 1916 prices were 
as abnormally high as 1912 prices were abnormally low. At 4c a 
pound to the grower, pintos constitute a reliable cash crop which will 
return good acre net profits to the grower. 
The red Mexicans, the spotted Indian beans and teparies do not 
have a standard market in this section. They are grown extensively 
in the Southwest. In fact, the pink bean in southern California, 
Arizona and New Mexico is quite generally grown and is perhaps the 
most common bean on the market, but for those sections to which 
Colorado normally ships, namely, the South and East, pintos and navies 
are the types known. Navy beans mav be successfully grown under 
Colorado conditions, but they require much more hand work and care. 
Consequently, they are much more expensive to produce. While they 
bring higher prices on the market, the spread between navies and 
