142 



QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 



Ranners in 

 Feas and 

 Beans. 



surprising how much exceedingly valuable material has been accumu- 

 lated. Experience on Virginia plantations, so located that stable manure 

 cannot be obtained, prompts these remarks, as 150 pigs kept in three 

 barnyards have annually produced an immense quantity of exceedingly 

 valuable manure. The value of the meat of the pigs should more than 

 pay for their feed, the manure being all profit. Of course such a piggery 

 should be kept distant from the farmer's dwelling on account of offensive 

 smells and flies. 



873. Q. What causes runners in peas and beans? 



A. Sometimes perfectly true types of peas and beans will send up what 

 appear to be running tendrils, or will produce what appear to be late 

 vines, both due to the accidental location of some seeds over lumps of 

 manure, or due to the conditions of deep or shallow rooting, or to a rainy 

 season, all these being purely accidental fluctuations in the apparent 

 character of the stock. Runners, however, are generally due to an unse- 

 lected stock, to a bad strain of blood. All peas and beans, if neglected, 

 will become partially wild or rampant. They can only be kept within 

 prescribed limits by constantly throwing out all vines in which any indi- 

 cation of a departure from the true type is observable. A disposition to 

 grow wild is inherent in all types of peas and beans, just as it is in the 

 human system ; and when not checked by selection, that disposition 

 develops so rapidly as to completely change the character of the stock in 

 three or four years. 

 Germination. 874. Q. In planting garden seeds of various kinds I sometimes find that 

 seed from the same package planted at different dates gives varying 

 results as to the number of seeds that sprout. Can you account for this? 



A. If the seed is from the same package and the germinating qualities 

 seem different, it is obviously due to soil, or to atmospheric conditions, or 

 to your system of treatment of either soil or seed. For example : If, 

 after preparing the land in one instance, the seed is sown at once in the 

 damp soil, it is likely to sprout at once ; but if in the other instance after 

 the lahd is prepared it be left to dry and bake from one to two days, or a 

 week or more, before sowing, then the seed will be slow to germinate, if 

 indeed it does not fail altogether. 



875. Q. What soil is adapted to bean culture? 

 A. It is an old saying that any field is good enough for beans, but that 



is a mistake, for this crop profits as much by sowing on good soil as any 

 other. On strong soils the crop sometimes reaches thirty bushels of dry 

 seeds to the acre, but often on thin soils not more than six or seven. 



876. Q. You sent me last month a lot of Golden Wax beans with very 

 little white upon the dry seeds. Now I get another lot from you nearly 

 all white. Can they both be true ? 



A. Yes ; they may differ very much in the extent of coloring on the 

 dry seed and yet both be equally good when in edible pod. In fact, 

 there may be a half-dozen degrees of coloring in as many lots, due par- 

 tially to the stock seeds planted, but principally to the soil on which They 



Bean Soil. 



Variation 

 in Beans. 



