California experience is that horse beans grow readily without inoculation of the seed.  Quite a good growth of the plant is being secured in many parts of the State, particularly in the coast region where the plant seems to thrive best.  It is one of the hardiest of the bean family and will endure light frost.  How hardy it will prove in your place could be told only by a local experiment.  Whether it can be planted after frost danger is over, as corn is, and make satisfactory growth and product in the dry heat of the interior summer must also be determined by experience.

The horse bean is a tall growing, upright plant which is successfully grown in rows far enough apart for cultivation, say about 2 1/2 feet, the seed dropped thinly so that the plants will stand from 6 inches to 1 foot apart in the row.

Growing Castor Beans.

Give information on the castor oil bean; the kind of bean best to plant, when to plant and harvest, the best soil, and where one can market them.

Castor bean growing has been undertaken from time to time since 1860 in various parts of California.  There is no difficulty about getting a satisfactory growth of the plant in parts of the State where moisture enough can be depended upon.  Although the growing of beans is easy enough, the harvesting is a difficult proposition, because in California the clusters ripen from time to time, have to be gathered by hand, to be put in the sun to dry, and finally threshed when they are popping properly.  The low price, in connection with the amount of hand work which has to be done upon the crop, has removed all the attractions for California growers.  There is also, some years, an excess of production in the central West, which causes prices to fall and makes it still more impracticable to make money from the crop with the ordinary rates of labor.  The oil cannot be economically extracted except by the aid of the most effective machinery and a well equipped establishment.  Oil-making in the rude way in which it is conducted in India would certainly not be profitable here.

Legume Seed Inoculation.

Is there any virtue in inoculating plants with the bacteria that some seed firms offer?  I refer to such plants as peas and beans.

If the land is yielding good crops of these plants and the roots are noduled, it does not need addition of germs.  If the growth is scant even when there is enough moisture present and the roots are free from nodules, the presumption is that germs should be added.  Speaking generally, added germs are not needed in California because our great legume crops are made without inoculation.  Presumably, burr clover and our host of native legumes have already charged the soil with them.  If, however, such plants do not do well, try inoculation by all means, to see if absence of germs is the reason for such failure or whether you must look for some other reason.  If the results are satisfactory, you may have made a great gain by introduction of desirable soil organisms which you can extend as you like by the distribution of the germ-laden soil from the areas which have been given that character by inoculation of the seed.