PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS* CLUB. 139 



poles, and then fall down. He was accustomed to use Knox's cul- 

 tivator, for weeding his beans. Others thought there was no other 

 horse implement superior to Alden's Horse Hoe. He had used 

 Peruvian guano for top dressing beans. 



Dr. Crowell coincided with Mr. Quinn, adding that he consid- 

 ered Peruvian guano as one of the very best special manures ever 

 used for Lima beans. He would use on each hill about a teaspoon- 

 ful, largely mixed v>^ith earth as a divisor, and apply it to the sur- 

 face of the hill after planting the seed. 



Mr. J. A. Montgomery, Williamsport, Penn,, stated that he had 

 raised Lima beans for many years past, but they could not be 

 raised successfully in some localities, especially -where the soil is 

 cold, wet and heavy. 



Mr. Isaac Hicks, North Hempstead, L. L, said that a distance ot 

 two feet nine inches apart was sufficient. Four feet was further 

 than necessary. He plants ten beans around each pole, always 

 planting the seed shoal, as they come up with difficulty. 



Mr. P. T. Quinu stated that the true way to select seed for the 

 next year's crop is to allow the first set, and first ripe pods to 

 remain for seed, instead of eating them, which is eminently impor- 

 tant, in order to produce beans early in the season. A part of the 

 best row should be selected for seed, and no beans taken from it 

 for the table. By this means, in a few years, the beans will ripen 

 much earlier. 



Mr. Wm. Lawton. — There is a spurious kind of seed, more 

 round, thicker and smaller than the true sort, which are broad, 

 flat and thin on the edges. 



Ajourned. 



June 5, 1866. 

 Mr. Nathan C. Ely in the chair ; Mr. John W. Chambers, Sec. 



Lower Story Sleeping Rooms. 

 Mr. S. M. Parsons, Waukan, Wis., writes to the Club as fol- 

 lows : "If you have a cellar under your house, or the underpin- 

 ning be such as to prevent a free circulation under it, your family 

 will gain more strength by sleeping up stairs than they will expend 

 by going up stairs 'ten times a day.' But if your house is not 

 over a hole in the ground, and is so elevated as to admit a free 

 circulation beneath it, your family may as well sleep in the lower 

 rooms, provided they are properly ventilated. But a house over 



