1S89 



(JLEANLNUS IN BEE CULTURE. 



509 



SPECIAL DEPARTMENT FOR A. I. ROOT, AND HIS 

 FRIENDS WHO LOVE TO RAISE CROPS. 



THE KUMBHIiE LIMA BEAN, AND GETTING TWO 

 CROPS IS ONE SEASON. 



fOU asked such of your readers as can raise 

 lima licans during t he winter to write to you. 

 I have seen but one winter in IK wherein they 

 could not be raised here, and they have been 

 repeatedly raised for home use. They live 

 two or three years, and with but little care, and 

 make, on suitable soil, even better yields than 

 northern grown seed. The seewee, planted at the 

 foot of old stumps, grows readily and with no care 

 alter it begins to run, and bears enormously. Ear- 

 ly in October is the best time for planting here, as 

 the weather is moderately cool then, and there is 

 ample time to grow before the coldest weather 

 comes. I could undertake \i acre or less. 

 Palma Sola, Fla., May 26, 1889. J. F. SiKES. 



Well, I declare, friend S-, we have got it 

 after all, haven't we ? But what yon say 

 about lima beans living two or three years 

 is to me astounding. I saw pumpkin and 

 squash vines in California that had been 

 growing for several years ; also tomatoes ; 

 but in some way I had got it into my head 

 that a bean, after it had borne its crop and 

 matured its seed, had got to die. Well, we 

 shall have to live and learn. As soon as the 

 Kumerle lima beans are ripe enough to 

 grow, I will send you some seed, but I hard- 

 ly think I shall have enough to spare for a 

 quarter of an acre. If you plant seed in Oc- 

 tober, as you statu, what time would they 

 ripen V Unless they would be ripe enough 

 to plant by June 1 in our locality, they 

 would not be of much use. Last season we 

 planted a long row of the kidney wax beans. 

 The seed was gathered just as soon as the 

 lirst ones were apparently full sized. But 

 only a bean or two came up in that long row: 

 these were feeble, and amounted to nothing. 

 From this I infer that the seed must become 

 perfectly ripe and dry before it can be plant- 

 ed to grow again. I do not quite under- 

 stand it, however, for our lima beans, which 

 we gather green, and shell for the wagon, 

 have, during very warm weather, heated in 

 the little baskets so as to send out sprouts 

 half an inch long, and that in one night. 

 Now, I supposed that of course these lima 

 beans, if planted in the ground, would grow. 

 But my experiment seems to indicate that 

 it is a mistake. It may be, however, that I 

 did not let the beans get ripe enough. One 

 thing that makes me think so is that the 

 beans that were planted in this long row 

 were perfectly white, and looked like ordi- 

 nary kidney beans. On the strength of this 

 I said in the price list that kidney wax 

 beans were white, not remembering at the 

 time that the small packet I planted to get 

 my lirst ones started had a colored spot just 

 about the eye. My lima beans, however, 

 will be ripe and dry long before October. 

 So, friend S., you and I are going to test the 

 matter of getting two crops of lima beans in 

 one j ear. If you succeed, the Kumerle lima 

 beari won't be worth its weight in gold in 

 1890, 



OUU PATCH OF .IESSII0 STKAWBEKIUES. 



Last fall, after our Early Ohio potatoes 

 were dug, I had the ground cultivated very 

 smooth and Hue, and then covered with as 

 much stable manure as we could well plow 

 under. It was then plowed, harrowed, and 

 marked out with our disk furrower, leaving 

 wide deep furrows like paths. These paths 

 were three feet wide from center to center. 

 While the furrower was going over the 

 ground, a wooden tooth was fastened tem- 

 porarily so as to make a shallow groove in 

 the center of each one of the raised beds. 

 My idea was, that if strawberries were 

 planted in the center of these raised beds 

 they would not suffer so much from frost, 

 because the paths or furrows would let 

 off all the surplus water during winter. I 

 think that strawberries, like wheat, are in- 

 jured in winter because of a surplus of wa- 

 ter standing on the ground. Remember, 

 this ground is already well underdrained, 

 but our clay soil is so slow in letting the 

 water pass away, that I felt sure the above 

 arrangement would help the matter of hav- 

 ing the plants thrown out by the frost. 

 Well, the mild winter may have had some- 

 thing to do with it; but as it was, not a 

 plant in the whole 3000 was injured in win- 

 ter. There are nine rows of the berries. 

 Three of them are Sharpless, and the others 

 Jessie. Strong plants were selected, and 

 they were put in in the fall, with our trans- 

 planting-tubes ; all runners being nipped, 

 they of course made a good growth, and 

 went down into the rich ground very se- 

 curely. Not a plant died in transplanting, 

 that 1 know of. You will remember that, 

 in our list of plants, I have mentioned the 

 Jessie as holding itself up out of the dirt. 

 Well, we were greatly puzzled because this 

 year the Jessie did nothing of the kind. 

 Perhaps the plant might be excused for 

 omitting this part of the programme when I 

 tell you that the berries are, many of -them, 

 more like peaches than strawberries, so far 

 as size is concerned. Another thing, we 

 have heretofore supposed that the Jessie 

 was a regular-shaped berry. This year they 

 are broad, wedge-shaped, double, and in al- 

 most every respect just about like the Sharp- 

 less ; in fact, everybody calls them the 

 Sharpless, only they were ripe before a sin- 

 gle one of the Sharpless had got its growth. 

 They are so luscious that the robins, the 

 hens — yes, even the rats, have gone to sam- 

 pling them. We do not have many rats, but 

 there were enough to make a start on one 

 end of the Jessie berries. Besides the 

 above enemies, the small boys of the estab- 

 lishment got to picking them, and eating 

 them green by the pocketful before I knew 

 it. Just as soon as there is a blush of red 

 on one side of the berry they are very good 

 to eat. My cousin, D. E. Fenn, of Tall- 

 madge, ()., has just paid us a visit, and he is 

 a man pretty well acquainted with horticul- 

 ture in all its branches, especially straw- 

 berries. He pronounced my patch of Jessies 

 the finest thing in the line of a strawberry 

 that he had ever seen in his life. Now, he 

 is a comparatively near neighbor to friend 

 Terry, and to Matthew Crawford besides. 

 We are still picking off the runners and 



