AMERICAN HOME GARDEN. 119 



for cooking, they are soaked a while to remove the excess of salt, 

 and then boiled in the ordinary manner. With proper care 

 they will keep good until spring. 



In raising beans in large quantities the land should be fur- 

 rowed with a horse-marker or light plow, about two feet apart, 

 and the beans sown by hand, and covered with the potato- 

 hook ; or any good corn-planter may be used, which will com- 

 plete the operation at once. 



The after-culture should be performed with the skeleton 

 plow and light harrow, or the cultivator, to keep them clean, 

 and either a single or a double mould-plow to slightly earth 

 them up, after which but little finishing off by the hand-hoe 

 will be required. 



For analysis of bush beans and their value, see page 500. 



POLE BEANS. 



French, Haricots a rames. German, Stangbohnen. Spanish, Judias. 

 LARGE LIMA. SMALL LIMA OR CAROLINA. HORTICULTURAL. 

 DUTCH CASE-KNIFE. ASPARAGUS. SCARLET RUNNERS, 

 &C., &C. 



Time : throughout corn-planting time both North and South. 

 At New York in all May. 



Pole beans require to be planted in hills from two to four 

 feet apart, in which poles should be first set securely by the 

 aid of a crow-bar. 



Plant four or five beans an inch and a half deep around each 

 pole, and from four to six inches from it. When well up, hoe 

 and thin them, leaving three or four of the strongest and most 

 healthful plants ; keep the earth well hoed and loosened about 

 them ; and when they begin to run, guide them to the pole if 

 they do not find it readily, being careful to wind them in the 

 natural direction.* Continue to keep the earth loose and clean 



* Vegetables and woody plants that wind in their growth do not all 

 wind in one direction, but each kind winds uniformly in its natural course, 

 and no other. The honeysuckle and the hop wind "with the sun" 

 that is, the point of the vine in its progress passes from the south by the 

 west, and north and east to the south again ; but the bitter sweet, the 

 wistaria, the morning-glory, the cypress vine, and the bean, wind against 

 the sun that is, the point grows from the south to the east, and by the 

 north and west again to the south. 



