B E A 



1) 1 



[RolU-r ith Spikes.] 



nourishment to tlie top. The reason for doing this in Bur- 

 dens is, that when a plant his borne pods a certain time it 

 is most advantageous to remove it, and the top blossoms, of 

 course, never come to perfection. In the field this is not the 

 case, there being no succession of plants ; and, unless the 

 top blossoms are very late, or the black dolphin (aphis) be- 

 gins to appear, which is shown bv the honey-dew on thu 

 top shoots, no advantage is gained by topping the plants, 

 and the labour is thrown away. When the leaves of the 

 beans begin to lose their green colour, and the pods to turn 

 black, the crop should be reaped with the sickle, and made 

 into small sheaves, tied with straw bands or tar twine, and 

 set up in the field to dry. In some places pease are sown 

 mixed with the beans, or the headlands are sown with pease, 

 the halm of which is used to tie the beans with ; but pease 

 rimir round the bean stalks and impede the setting of the 

 pods; they also interfere with the hoeing and weeding, so 

 that the practice is not to be recommended. Pease require a 

 liirhter soil and are best sown separately, except when they 

 are sown broad-cast mixed with beans, in order to be mown 

 in a green state as fodder for cattle or for pigs. Sowing 

 beans for this last-mentioned purpose is not much practised 

 in England, but is found very useful on the Continent, espe- 

 cially in Flanders ; in this case they are mown like tares soon 

 after the pods are formed. In order to have a succession 

 of this green food, they should be sown at different thin -s, 

 with a week or fortnight's interval. By this means a great 

 (lr;il of grass is saved, which may be reserved for hay ; the 

 cattle fed 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 repeat- 

 edly mentioned as indispensable appendages to every good 

 farm-yard. By having winter tares when the turnips are 

 consumed, pease and beans after the first crop of clover, and 

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

 all the year round with great advantage, the laud may be 

 tilled at the best season of the year, and prepared for wheat, 

 u well as by a clean fallow, while the green crop will fully 

 repay all the expenses. Three bushels of beans and two of 

 pease mixed together are required per aero when sown broad- 

 east, or drilled in each furrow after the plough. It is often 

 advantageous to cut in a green state those beans which were 

 town 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 U left in 

 much better state for the following crop. 



Although beans grow beat in a rather heavy soil, they 

 are often profitable on much lighter land, especially aftor 

 elover ley or grass, which is broken up after being depas- 

 tured two or three yean. This is an excellent preparatory 

 crop for wheat, and better than oats, which leave such land ful'l 

 of weeds. In thU case the land should be carefully ploughed 

 up. For this purpose 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 stitches or lands loave* the whole surface 

 compact and solid, keeping tho moisture from evaporating 

 and facilitating the slow decomposition of the root* of the 

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

 obtained. If the (oil should be exhausted or very poor, a good 

 coat of manure spread over the grass and ploughed in will b 



a great advantage to the beans, and to the wheat which is to 

 follow. On moderately light loams the most profitable rota- 

 tion 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. Wheu 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 like- 

 wise done when it is intended to change the course of 

 crops ; because beans are considered the least exhausting 

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

 practice U far less hurtful than the too common one of 

 taking another crop of oats after the wheat, by which more 

 harm is done than the value of tho crop cancompenstn 



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

 which is a minute fungus that grows on the stems of 

 leaves, and is caused by cold fogs and frequent sudden va- 

 riations of weather, and the black dolphin, an insect of the 

 aphis 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 at- 

 tacked the plants generally, before the pods arc filled, the 

 best method is to cut down the crop in its 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. When- 

 ever the tops of the beans begin to be moist and clammy t<i 

 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 cll'ec- 

 tual way to prevent any disease from attacking the plants in 

 their growth is to have the ground in good heart, and well 

 tilled ; to drill the beans at a sutnciont distance between the 

 rows to allow of tho use of the horse-hoe, and thus to accele- 

 rate 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 hay and straw cut into chaff ; this 

 will ensure proper mastication and prevent that thickening 

 of the wind, as it U called, caused by indigestion, 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 whom 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 de- 

 licate porkers. In the last period of their fatting, therefore 

 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 usod for that purpose. 

 mixed with water and given as a drink to cows it greatly 

 -s their milk. A small quantity of beans is gene- 

 rally mixed with new wheat when ground to Hour : the mil- 

 lers pretend that soft wheat will not grind well without 

 buns, and they generally contrive that there shall be no 

 deficiency in the necessary proportion. Thus a quantity of 

 beans i* converted into what ii considered as w beaten Hour- 



