160 Comparative Earliness of Eight Varieties of Beans. 



Yellow Six Weeks are of about equal value as regards their 

 earliness, but that the others, with the exception of the Mo- 

 hawk, vary from one to fonr weeks in the period of their 

 growth for stringing, and something more in the ripening of 

 their crop. The season, last year, was wet and rather cool 

 just after the beans were out of the ground, and, as the soil 

 was rather stiff, they did not come forward so rapidly as they 

 would have done in a more favorable situation. But for that, 

 we presume the China Dwarf and Yellow Six Weeks would 

 have produced pods for stringing in about six weeks. 



There is considerable difference in the growth and habit of 

 the different varieties above mentioned. The China dwarf 

 produces its crop at once, and, in a week or two after, the 

 pods are sufficiently full to shell, the whole of them are quite 

 dry, and the vines ready to pull, thus clearing the ground at 

 once for any other crop. The Yellow Six Weeks, on the contra- 

 ry, though producing as early as the China Dwarf, ripen their 

 crop gradually, and even when some of the pods are dry, there 

 will be others but just beginning to fill up. This, too, is the 

 case, in a greater or less degree, with the others, especially the 

 Marrow. The Dwarf Horticultural is a fine variety, having 

 all the excellence of the running kind, and fully as dwarf as 

 the Cranberry ; it is also a great bearer, and ripens in suc- 

 cession. It deserves to find a place in every garden. The 

 large White Kidney is late, and keeps up the succession to 

 the end of the season. 



The cultivation of beans is so simple that we need say but 

 little on this point. A light and not too rich a soil suits them 

 best, and the situation should be one not liable to be over- 

 saturated with moisture, which often causes mildew. It is 

 not safe to plant too early, for a chilly night or two, just about 

 the time the young plants emerge from the ground, will injure 

 them, even if the temperature does not fall to the freezing 

 point. 



To amateurs who are desirous of an early crop, and do 

 not mind a litde extra labor, the mode of producing them 

 which we advised for Lima Beans in a previous volume, 

 II. p. 401,) may be recommended ; this is, to sow the beans on 

 inverted sods in an old hotbed, or in one in which there is not 

 too great a heat ; when the plants have put out their first rough 



