7(5 Cultivation of Arable Land. Beans* Methods offorving* 



practice, is greatly preferable to the above, both in admitting of the land being 



kept clean, and in the economy of feed. In this way the rows are ufually 



marked out to the diftance of a foot from each other, and the beans depofited 



in hoes about two inches apart, the lines being ftretched acrofs the ridges, 



which are formed of different breadths, according to the circumftances of the 



land, but in many cafes about fix feet over. In this mode, after one row is 



planted, the pegs to which the lines are attached are moved exactly to the 



distance that is requifite until the whole field is finifhed. It is an excellent 



method for layers. The expence of this mode of fetting beans is generally about 



nine pence or a (hilling the peck. In fome places it is done by the gallon at the 



rate of about four pence. In performing this buiinefs care muft conftantly be 



taken by the employer to fee that the beans are regularly depofited in the holes 



ro a fuitable depth, and not thrown away or otherwife wafted, in order to obtain 



greater wages. After the beans are thus depofited, a bufh-harrow or very fliort- 



tined common harrow, drawn by horfes in the furrows, is generally pafTed over the 



ground in order to cover them. In fome parts of Effex they have a practice of 



dibbling beans on two bout ridges of three feet in breadth, in double rows on 



the crowns nine inches apart, leaving an interval of twenty feven. 



The Kentifh farmers have however a much neater and more expeditious me 

 thod of fo wing beans, which is, to ftrike out furrows in the proportion of about 

 eleven to a rod in breadth, in which the feed is thinly depofited by means of & 

 fowing-box, which is held by a perfon following the flriking-plough, and who, 

 by (lightly agitating it when filled with beans, drops them with regularity into the- 

 furrows as they are formed. The feed is then covered by harrowing down the 

 inequalities of the ground. It is ftated that in this method, with two men and 

 two or three horfes to the plough, a perfon to manage the box, and a boy with: 

 two horfes to perform the bufmefs of harrowing, the fpace of three acres may be 

 completed in the courfe of a day.* 



In accomplifhing this bufinefs, it is, however, the cuftom of fome agricultors. 

 to make ufe of a drill plough ; but as beans are liable to confiderable inequality 

 of fize, they are feldorn delivered in a fufficiently regular manner faom the hop 

 per, large beans occasionally interrupting the fowing in fuch a way as to ren 

 der the crop vacant or uneven in different places, defects which the picking 

 of the feed over is not even capable of removing. In fpeaking of implements;,, 

 drills have however been defchbed that feem to depofit the beans with much: 

 correctnefs* 



* Synopfa of Husbandry, p. 110. 



