29 



BEAN, THE. 



BEAN, THE. 



so 



feel in the stables or yards thrive well on this food, and produce a 

 quantity of rich manure, chiefly in a liquid state, which fills the tanks 

 and reservoirs which we have repeatedly mentioned as indispensabL 

 appendages to every good farm-yard. By having winter tares when 

 the turnips are consumed, peas and beans after the first crop of clover 

 and summer tares to succeed them, cattle may be fed in the stables al 

 the year round with great advantage, the land may be tilled at the besl 

 season of the year, and prepared for wheat, as well as by a clean fallow 

 while the green crop will fully repay all the expenses. Three bushels 

 of beans and two of peas, mixed together, are required per acre when 

 sown broad-cast, or drilled in each furrow after the plough. It is often 

 advantageous to cut in a green state those beans which were sown for a 

 general crop when food for pigs is scarce ; they will go nearly as far in 

 this way in feeding store pigs as the beans would have done when ripe, 

 and the ground is left in a better state for the following crop. 



Beans may be either sown by drill, in rows one foot to two feet 

 apart, or hand-dibbled, or sown by hand or by barrow in the wake ol 

 thu plough, under every second or third furrow-slice ; or sown on 

 manure in drills between ridgelets, 28 to 30 inches apart, being then 

 covered by the splitting of these ridgelets, and the land being then 

 partly harrowed down and rolled. The wider intervals are best when 

 the bean is considered as a fallow crop. If the laud be clean, an inter- 

 val of 18 inches is sufficient to allow air and light for the proper 

 setting of the blossoms and growth of the pods. When winter beans 

 are sown, the stubble (wheat or oats) should be broad-shared and 

 cleaned and ploughed. Manure may (20 cubic yards per acre) then be 

 carted on the laud, and spread and ploughed in ; and the laud, being 

 harrowed, is ready for the drilling-machine. The seed, two or two and 

 a half bushels per acre, may be sown in October, in rows about 

 20 or 24 inches apart, and the land, being harrowed down and water- 

 furrowed, is left for the winter. The spring cultivation, horse-hoeing 

 and hand-hoeing, is the same only earlier, as for any other sort. 

 The crop is generally ripe a month before the spring-sown sorts, and 

 therefore both less liable to blight, and better enabling a partial fallow 

 before the seed-time of the wheat crop, which succeeds it. The winter 

 bean is better for the lighter class of soils than other sorts. It is a 

 heavy bean per bushel, and a good cropper. 



Although beans grow best in a rather heavy soil, they are often 

 profitable on much lighter land, especially after clover lea or grass, 

 which is broken up after being depastured two or three years. This is 

 an excellent preparatory crop for wheat, and better than oats, which 

 leave such land full of weeds. In this case the land should be care- 

 fully ploughed up. For this pin-pose a skim-coulter, which has a small 

 wing attached to it, to slice off the grassy surface of the land and turn 

 it under the furrow, is a most useful appendage to the plough. This 

 makes very clean work, and a heavy roller drawn across the ridges or 

 lands leaves the whole surface compact and solid, keeping the moisture 

 from evaporating and facilitating the slow decomposition of the roots 

 of the grass. Thus a very good and clean crop of beans may be 

 obtained. If the soil should be exhausted or very poor, a good coat of 

 manure spread over the grass and ploughed in will be a great advantage 

 to the beans and to the wheat which is to follow. On moderately light 

 loams a profitable rotation of crops is that of turnips, barley, clover, 

 beans, wheat ; or, if it is in a rich state, turnips, barley, clover, oats, 

 beans, wheat, beans. When land is in good heart, beans are often 

 added to any rotation after wheat or before it, and the fallow is thus 

 removed a year farther on. This is likewise done when it is intended 

 to change the course of crops ; because beans are considered the least 

 exhausting of the crops which are allowed to ripen their seeds, and this 

 practice is far less hurtful than the too common one of taking another 

 crop of oats after the wheat, by which more harm is often done than 

 the value of the crop can compensate for. 



The diseases to which beans are subject are, the mildew, which is a 

 minute fungus that grows on the stems and leaves, and is caused by 

 cold fogs and frequent sudden variations of weather, and the black 

 dolphin, an insect of the aphii tribe, which appears first in the form of 

 a honey-dew on the tops of the plants. For the mildew, no remedy or 

 preventive has yet been found : whenever it has attacked the plants 

 generally, before the pods are filled, the best method is to cut down the 

 crop in ite green state, and if it cannot be consumed in the farm-yard, 

 to plough it into the ground, where it will decay rapidly, and be an 

 excellent manuring for the succeeding crop of wheat. If allowed to 

 stand, the crop will not only be unproductive, but the weeds will infest 

 the ground, and spoil the wheat crop by their seeds and roots, which 

 will remain in the soil. Whenever the tops of the beans begin to be 

 moist and clammy to the feel, it is the forerunner of the aphis. They 

 should then be immediately cut off, and this, if done in time, may save 

 the crop from the ravages of the insects ; but the most effectual way 

 to prevent any disease from attacking the plants in their growth is to 

 lie ground in good heart, and well tilled ; to drill the beans at a 

 sufficient distance between the rows to allow of the. use of the horse- 

 hoe, and thus to accelerate the growth of the plants, and enable them 

 to outgrow the effect of incipient disease, which seldom attacks any 

 but weak plants. 



The principal use of beans is to feed horses, for which purpose they 

 are admirably adapted, and far more nourishing than oats. They 

 should be bruised or split in a mill, and given to horses mixed with 

 i chaff; this will ensure proper mastication, and 



prevent that thickening of the wind, as it is called, caused by indi- 

 gestion, which makes beans alone not so well adapted for the food of 

 hunters and race-horses. Great quantities of beans are consumed in 

 fatting hogs, to which they are given whole at first, and afterwards 

 ground into meal. Bacon hogs may be fatted entirely on beans and 

 bean-meal ; but as this food makes the flesh very firm, it is not so well 

 adapted for delicate porkers. In the last period of their fatting, there- 

 fore, barley-meal is usually substituted for bean-meal. Bean-meal 

 given to oxen soon makes them fat, and the meat is far better than 

 when oil-cake is used for that purpose : mixed with water and given as 

 a drink to cows, it greatly increases their milk. A small quantity of 

 beans is generally mixed with new wheat when ground to flour ; the 

 millers pretend that soft wheat will not grind well without beans, and 

 they generally contrive that there shall be no deficiency in the neces- 

 sary proportion. Thus a quantity of beans is converted into what is 

 considered as wheaten flour. This practice is well known to all bakers 

 and dealers in flour ; and as there are means of discovering the quantity 

 of bean-meal in the flour, the ignorant and unsuspecting only are 

 deceived, and the price of the flour to the skilful purchaser varies 

 according to the quality. The bean contains a great deal of nutritious 

 matter 23 per cent, of nitrogenous or flesh-forming substance and 

 48 per cent, of starch, with 10 per cent, of woody fibre, 3J per cent, 

 of ash, and 14 or 15 per cent, of water, in its ordinary condition in the 

 market. The ash of the grain and of the straw respectively contains, 

 according to Way and Ogston (' Journal of the English Agricultural 

 Society '), as follows : 



Silica 



Phosphoric acid . 



Sulphuric acid . . 



Carbonic acid , 



Lime . . . 



Magnesia . . 



Peroxide of iron , 



Potash 



Soda 



Chloride of Sodium 



Chloride of Potassium 



Beans. 

 0-88' 



31-87 

 4-50 

 1-94 

 8-65 

 6-55 

 0-38 



42-13 

 0-90 

 1-90 

 0-34 



100-02 



Straw. 

 3-86 

 7-35 

 3-21 



22-73 



21-20 

 4-88 

 0-90 



21-26 

 1-56 

 9-05 

 0-90 



99'99 



These figures indicate a large demand upon the potash of the soil. 

 The sulphuric acid and lime, present in considerable quantity, indicate 

 also a considerable demand for gypsum, the compound of these two 

 substances, which has in fact been found a good manure for the bean 

 crop. 



The French bean, kidney-bean, or haricot bean (Phaseohts vuJgara), 

 is chiefly cultivated for its tender and succulent pod, being one of 

 the most esteemed vegetables for the table. The varieties are innume- 

 rable, differing slightly in their qualities : they may be divided into 

 two distinct kinds, the dwarf and the climbing ; the former are the 

 earlier, the latter the more productive. French beans are much less 

 hardy than the common beans ; a very slight degree of frost will 

 destroy them entirely. The early sorts are therefore sown in shel- 

 tered situations, and occasionally protected by glass frames or mats. 

 The climbing beans require the support of sticks or wires, round 

 which they twine as they grow, with this peculiarity, that the coils 

 turn round the support from the right to the left, contrary to the 

 growth of some indigenous twisting plants, which turn from the left 

 to the right, following the apparent diurnal motion of the sun. 



The French bean, as an esculent vegetable, is wholesome and nutri- 

 tious in a fresh state, and may be readily preserved for winter store or 

 sea voyages by salting in casks. For this purpose the large, flat-podded, 

 Dutch white runner is preferred. In Holland and Germany, where 

 large quantities are salted in almost every family, a machine is used 

 for cutting them expeditiously, which greatly resembles a turnip- 

 slicer, and may, with a slight alteration, be used also for slicing 

 cabbages when making the national German preparation of sour-krout 

 (aauer-kraut). It consists of a wheel or disc, A, in which two or four 

 knives are set at a small angle with the plane of it, so as to shave off a 

 thin slice obliquely from the beans, which are held in a box, o, with 

 several partitions in which they are kept upright, so as to slide down in 

 proportion as they are cut : thus six or eight beans are sliced at once, 

 and very rapidly, merely by turning the handle B, and supplying the 

 box with beans in succession. The sliced beans fall on the table below, 

 and are immediately put in a cask with alternate layers of salt. When 

 the cask is full and well pressed down, a round board is put over the 

 beans and a heavy weight upon it. As the beans are compressed, and 

 begin slightly to ferment, the liquor is poured off, some fresh salt is 

 strewed over the surface, and a linen cloth is pressed close upon it to 

 keep out the air ; the round board and weight are put over the cloth, 

 and so the beans remain till wanted for use. When any are taken out, 

 they are washed in soft water to take out the salt, and gently stewed 

 with a little gravy, or with milk and a piece of butter. They form a 

 very wholesome vegetable dish at a time when fresh vegetables are 

 scarce. The dried seeds are also boiled after being soaked in water for 

 some time, and are usually mixed with the preserved green beans in 

 ;he same dish. This use of the French bean is not common in 

 England ; but when we take into consideration that they are extremely 



