M 
Thk Colorado Experiment Station 
Home-made bean harvester (Photo by W. H. Panck) 
Men follow the machine with pitch forks putting' the cut beans into 
neat shocks. Under Colorado conditions in practice the machines with 
the bunching attachment have not proved as successful as it was hoped. 
Some growers have found that if cut while the vines and pods are 
sufficiently moist, they can bunch the vines with a horse rake. This- 
practice has only one disadvantage, namely, the bunches are usually 
too large for the proper curing and drying out of the vines and pods 
A better practice is to collect the vines in small, rather flat bunches 
which can be easily turned over with the pitch fork in the hands of a 
single man. Such bunches cure readily and, if wet, can be inverted 
for drying. It has been found by experiment that a much higher 
quality of bean can be obtained by this method of bunching. 
While a regular bean harvester is desirable and should alwavs be 
used if there is any considerable acreage of beans grown, they may be 
harw'sted by using a breaking plow of the rod type, or by using a 
common sod plow with the mold board removed. Such expedients 
are much better than hand work on patches an acre or more in size^ 
but should only be used on small patches where the size of the patch 
is not large enough to justify the purchase of a regular harvester. 
Harvesting Period. —Opinions differ as to the proper time of 
harvesting. But experience and experimental work both show that if 
the beans are allowed to become completely ripe on the vine, heavy 
loss occurs from shattering. A good rule to follow is to harvest when 
the pods are turning yellow but have not yet dried out; at this stage 
there will usually be about half of the pods yellow ripe and a few 
still showing some green, providing the beans are ripening uniformly. 
When cut at this vellow-ripe stage, the beans will ripen up in the 
shock during the curing process and the loss in weight by drying out 
