168 GARDENING. 



the support of a useless portion of stem. But of 

 this practice, and of the theory on which it is found- 

 ed, we may be permitted to doubt, because it does 

 not appear to follow that, when the growth of a 

 plant is checked or suspended in one direction, it 

 will not exert itself in another as injuriously to the 

 crop as any increased length of stem would have 

 done. Every day's experience shows that, if we 

 pollard an apple-tree, we indeed stop its growth up- 

 ward, but that, instead of sending its surplus juices 

 to the support and enlargement of the fruit (as this 

 practice supposes), it hastens to throw out lateral 

 stems or suckers, which give no fruit whatever. 

 Our creed therefore is, that in the vegetable econ- 

 omy, certain juices go to the production of stem, 

 and certain others, more elaborated and of a differ- 

 ent quality, to that of flowers and fruits ; and that, 

 whether desirable or not, the art of giving to either 

 a destination different from what nature intended, is 

 yet to be discovered. 



The bean, of every species or variety, is exempt, 

 as we believe, from the depredations of insects ; but, 

 left for seed or winter use, it often suffers from 

 very dry or very wet weather; the one diminishing 

 the bulk, and hardening and shrivelling the skin ; the 

 other rotting the bean, and, when it does least mis- 

 chief, altering its flavour. For the former, frequent 

 watering may be a cure, but for the latter there is 

 perhaps no remedy. 



In the neighbourhood of cities, the dwarf varieties 

 are often cultivated in hotbeds, but the product is 

 always of a very inferior kind ; for, of the whole 

 catalogue of table vegetables, none is more apt to 

 take a disagreeable flavour from hot and fermented 

 dung (which is the basis of these beds) than the 

 bean. Of this process, therefore, we only say. that 

 it differs in nothing from that already described for 

 forcing asparagus.* 



* N. C. d'Agriculture, art. Feye. 



