136 GARDENING WITH BRAINS '^ 



sir")> our beans leave a good deal to be desired 

 in rapidity of growth and otherwise. Every 

 year I plant some new variety, but always feel 

 I must "try, try again." The Parisians have a 

 kind which is very much more tasty. It is an 

 insignificant-looking thing, small and "rusty,'* 

 but, oh, the flavor! When David Burpee wrote 

 me, in 1920, he was going to Europe, I implored 

 him to import this variety and make it popular 

 over here, just as his father, W. Atlee Burpee, 

 did the insignificant-looking Golden Bantam com. 



Burpee also introduced the stringless pod 

 bean, America's great contribution to beandom. 

 Its originator was a man whose name — Calvin 

 N. Keeney — is dear to all epicures, because he 

 eliminated from the beans the bothersome 

 strings which always got between the teeth — 

 unless the cook had patiently removed them, 

 which she often failed to do. The process of 

 removing the strings from the different varieties 

 of beans (there are hundreds of them) is still 

 going on; don't, for mercy's sake, grow any but 

 the stringless in your garden. Some of them 

 are now in all seed catalogues, while the most 

 advanced list chiefly the stringless. The world 

 do move! 



With three of our most important vegetables — 

 corn, tomatoes, and potatoes — the plant breed- 

 ers have been busy in recent years in reducing 

 the time needed for growth and ripening. 

 Except in the South, it is not customary to sow 



