7i 



more especially in Scotland, if an early bean could be 

 discovered, which would bear to the common bean, the 

 same qualities, that the hot seed does to the cold seed 

 pea : this would remove the principal obstacle to the 

 bean husbandry in Scotland, the lateness of the crop ; 

 and it is certainly lamentable to see the bean crop out in 

 the fields, while with a better climate, the land ought to 

 have been sown with wheat. Some improvements, how- 

 ever, in the harvesting of beans will be afterwards de- 

 scribed, which may tend to remove that objection. 



Some farmers prefer broad-cast to drilled beans. A 

 spirited farmer, during the three first years of his lease, 

 tried the following experiment. He had part drilled, 

 and part broad-cast, but the broad- cast always turned 

 out best. The drilling of land in beans suffers some- 

 times (when done either across, or to angle the ridges) 

 in the dressing, the furrows always filled up in the tiov 

 of horse -hoeing, and in wet weather, which often hap- 

 pens when the land is so laid down, sours the furrows, 

 spoils the crop, and destroys the land for after cropping. 

 Whereas when sown broad cast the furrows are cleared, 

 and stand so from seed-time till harvest, and generally a 

 weightier crop, which pulverizes the soil, and keeps the 

 land clean, equally if not better. He admits, however, 

 that upon easier soils than what he possesses, the drilling 

 of beans is an excellent system, when the land is clean 

 of couch-grass *. 



Communicaton from Mr Henry Thomson of Muir- 

 town of Balhousie near Perth. Mr Hume of Last Barns, ob- 

 serves, that be ins cannot be planted too near the surface, if 

 they are covered at all. 



