CROPS. 249 



crops, I come next to consider another class of plants, much cul 

 tivated and of great value in English husbandry. 



5. BEALVS. Beans are of several kinds. The first division is 

 into garden and field beans. Of garden beans very few are cul 

 tivated. String beans, otherwise called French beans, are com 

 mon enough but I have not met with our finest kinds of shell 

 beans, such as the cranberry, the pole, kidney or caseknife 

 bean, and, above all, that rich and delicious vegetable, the Lima 

 bean. If they are known in England, it has not been my fortune 

 to meet with them, either in the markets or at private tables. 



Beans may be considered, in England, as a most important field 

 crop, and are principally used for the feeding of horses, to which 

 they are given, usually, broken and mixed with oats, a quart 

 of beans being considered as quite equal to two quarts of oats, 

 or with cut hay and chaff. They are likewise used in fatting 

 swine ; but they are considered to give too much hardness to the 

 &quot;porfr, excepting when it is to be used for bacon. They are deemed 

 valuable likewise for fatting oxen, and increase much the milk 

 of cows. They may be said to take the place with the English 

 which Indian corn takes with us. Some quantity of beans are 

 mixed with new wheat to be ground, as the millers say &quot; that ; 

 soft wheat will not grind well without them ; and, as one 

 shrewdly observes, they take care that in this matter there shall 

 be no deficiency.&quot; I have eaten, in Scotland, bread made with 

 a large proportion of bean flour, but I cannot say with much 

 relish. The nutritive qualities of beans, as compared with wheat, 

 are as sixty-eight to seventy-eight per cent. The ordinary 

 weight of a bushel of beans is sixty-six pounds. 



There are several kinds cultivated, which are known by differ 

 ent names ; but the kind most approved is a small, round bean, 

 of a dark color, and of nearly twice the size of a marrowfat pea. 

 A well-cultivated field of .beans is, in its early stages, a beautiful 

 object. The land most suited to beans is a strong, rich loam, 

 and a clay soil is congenial to them. Nearly seventy bushels 

 have been obtained from an acre ; sixty is a large crop ; ordina 

 rily, however, they do not exceed thirty bushels. Here they are 

 sown early, in February or early in March, and ripen late. 

 They are sometimes sown broadcast, and large crops have been 

 obtained in this way ; but it is not recommended, from the dim- 



