Growing Castor Beans
Categories:
Vegetable Growing
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 eas
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.