86 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 
of early dwarf kinds every two or three weeks will give 
the same results, and two or three crops may be taken from 
the same ground in aseason. The pods are gathered in the 
ordinary vegetable crate, placed upon the market and sold 
in bulk by pint, quart, peck or bushel as the case may be. 
The dwarf sorts are often forced for their green pods 
and are quite profitable where there is considerable demand. 
They require a temperature of from 60-70 degrees and when 
they bloom the atmosphere should be quite dry. The 
plants may be grown in pots or boxes and set in the most 
convenient places or planted in benches; in any event it is 
important that an abundance of bottom heat be supplied. 
The pods are usually tied in bunches of fifty and sell for 
from twenty to fifty cents per bunch. Davis, Triumph, 
Flageolet Wax, Sion House and Canadian Wonder are 
among the best for forcing. 
Vicia Faba, the English broad bean, requires entirely 
different treatment. It is much more hardy than other 
beans and requires a moderately rich, cool, stiff, heavy 
loam and a cool exposure. Our summers are too hot for 
its best development and therefore it is little grown in this 
country. The seed, which requires from five to eight days 
to germinate, is planted in the same manner as dwarf beans 
as early as the ground will permit, usually the last of 
February or early March in the latitude of St. Louis. The 
plants may also be started under glass in January or Feb- 
ruary and afterward transplanted to the open ground, thus 
making more certain the chances of escaping the hot 
weather. In southern Europe the seed is often sown in 
October or November and the young plants are protected 
during winter by covering with frames. In cultivating it 
is best to draw the earth well up toward the plants to keep 
them more erect. After the first blossoms appear the tips 
are pinched, which tends to make the plant more branchy 
and lessens the damage by Aphides which otherwise appear 
in dense masses around the bloom. Seed for immediate 
