GARDEN BEANS 123 



lizers for limas, that nitrate of soda hastened matur- 

 ity and that dried blood gave the best yield Hansen 

 and Thornber* say, "It is sometimes recommended to 

 plant lima beans with the eye down. Some of Bur- 

 pee's and Henderson's were tested this way but no 

 difference was observable from those planted in the 

 ordinary manner." C. S. Kempton, a successful 

 Massachusetts gardener, never fails to get a good 

 crop of lima beans. His method in getting the beans 

 started is as follows : Shallow boxes such as tomato 

 plants are often started in, are secured and half filled 

 with earth and the beans, eye downward, and not 

 more than l /2 inch apart, are pressed into the earth 

 just enough to keep them in an upright position. 

 In a box 15x18 inches, about 400 to 500 beans can 

 be planted. He then fills the boxes nearly full of 

 earth, covering the beans a-bout i l /2 inches deep and 

 saturates the soil with water. In A week or ten 

 days, if the boxes have been kept in a warm place 

 and occasionally watered, the seed will have all 

 sprouted and taken root. Then the boxes are taken 

 to the field or garden and the beans transplanted, 

 placing four or five plants to a hill and thinning 

 eventually to three. Mr. Kempton says, "Following 

 this method no one will ever fail in growing lima 

 beans by reason of the seeds failing to sprout or 

 rotting." 



In comparison of early and dwarf limas Jordan,** 

 after carefully experimenting, did not note much dif- 

 ference in earliness of maturing. But in amount of 

 early fruit and total yields the early sorts were con- 

 siderablv ahead. Standard varieties of early limas 



S~DaR Bui 68, pp 105-158. **N J Bui 191, pp 216-268. 



