Jacob's Cattle Gasless

This variety was donated to SSE in 1981 by bean collector John Withee of Lynnfield, Massachusetts and the Wanigan Associates. It was developed by Professor Radcliffe Pike of the University of New Hampshire in collaboration with his brothers, Sumner and Alger Pike, and publicly released it in 1966. Their goal was to increase the yield of the Pike family's strain of Jacob's Cattle, a baking bean given to their great-grandfather Joseph Clark in Lubec, Maine by the Passamaquoddy people. The brothers crossed the Jacob's Cattle bean with a high-yielding Black Mexican soup bean. They also desired the new variety to mature in the short, and often foggy, growing season of Lubec, ME. It wasn’t until later that the bean’s “gasless” characteristic was discovered. Newspaper articles from the 1966 release of this variety stated that the Pike’s realized the beans were gasless after a young family member with digestive issues ate some of the beans without harm. Best used as a baking bean, as is the Maine tradition. SSE Accession # 100955