Cultivation of Arable Land. Beans. After-Culture Horfe-IIoeing. 79 



is to follow, the more money there is beftowed in this way, the better it is for 

 the farmer ; thofe of Kent being dilTatisfied if it does not amount to from feven- 

 teen to twenty millings the acre, as their wheat crop is fure to fuffer where 

 there has been any neglect in thefe procelTes, beans well managed by the hoe 

 being an excellent preparation for wheat crops.* 



In the methods of planting in rows, at the diftances of fifteen or twenty-four 

 as well as on ridges at thirty inches, the horfe-hoe may be molt conveniently 

 employed, but for narrower fpaces the hand-hoe can only be made ufe of. The 

 practice in Middlefex is, when the crops are about five or fix inches high, to- 

 constantly hand-hoe the intervals, and clean the rows by weeding, and to repeat 

 the fame operations about the time of their coming into bloffom, in which 

 the earth mould be carefully brought up to the roots of the plants, which has. 

 much effect, by the quantity of nourifhment thus provided, in promoting the 

 fetting as well as filling of the pods. It has alfo been remarked, that, where the 

 ground is in a fituation to admit of the action of a fmali light plough, or a 

 horfe-hoe, to earth up the rows, great benefit may be thus produced, but that on 

 the clayey loams this is only capable of being performed for a little time after 

 they have been well moiftened with rain.f 



In the county of Kent it is frequently the cufliom to apply the roller and the 

 harrow to the bean crops about the middle or latter end of March, by the firftr 

 of which the cloddy parts are broken down and reduced, while the latter im 

 mediately following renders the baked furface-mould fine and powdery ; by which 

 means new fupplies of nourimment are pro-vided, and the advancement of the 

 young plants greatly promoted. At no diftant period after this the beans are 

 edge-hoed, and then braked, the latter of which is a method of practice chiefly- 

 confined to that diftrict, and which is considered by fome cultivators as much 

 preferable to the application of the hoe to the whole furface of the fpaces be 

 tween the rows, not only as- being performed at a much lefs expence, but on 

 account of its being more effectual in the removal of weeds, and providing 

 more abundant fupplies of fuch fu&amp;gt;b (lances as contribute to the nutrition: of 

 plants, by loofening and newly aerating the furface-mould of the foil, as well as 

 throwing it up to the roots of the beans* It is cuftomary in many parts to re 

 peat this procefs every fortnight or three weeks, from the early part of May till 

 the feafon at which the crop blooms. t And it is obferved, that the earthing up 



* S^nopfis of Ilufbamlry. + Corroded Report of 



I Annals of Agriculture, vol. IX. 



