612 



THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



of thi8 bean, aa fortniuf; a cover to entire fields, 1 sprinkled by the spray oC the broken waves in 



is almost confined to tlie sandy peninsula, called 

 the Eastern Shore, between the Chesapeake bay 

 and the Atlantic ocean— and, especially to the 

 lands cultivated alternate years in corn and oais ; 

 which however is ihe almost universiil roiation ol 

 crops in the Virginia part of the peninsula. 



The Eastern Shore bean is an annual plant of 

 the pea tribe. The stem is upright, with spread- 

 ing branches ; both are strong, hard and woody 

 in texture. The leaves are slianed like those ol 

 the locust tree, (and most oilier plants ol the 

 pea kind,) and the flowers are yellow. Alloge- 

 ther, it is a beautil'ul plant, if viewed singly, and 

 eiiil more in the mass when covering thickly the 

 whole surlace et'a field, and in liill growth. The 

 eeeds are in pods, and are black, flat, and shaped 

 like a rhonibus with the angles slightly rounded. 

 They are very hard, so that ihey may remain, il 

 covered loo deeply, for years in the earth without 

 sprouting. To this is owing ihe subsequeni per- 

 petual succession, in spite of the many successive 

 young growths killed by the plough during a year 

 of tillage. The plants grow usually from one to 

 two feet high, on poor and middling soils ol the 

 Eastern Shore, but form a heavier coat of herbage 

 than would any other green crop, natural or ar- 

 tificial, without the aid of tillage, on the like soils. 

 When a field covered by this plant is ploughed 

 in the winter or spring lor corn, seeds in abun- 

 dance are buried. Many young plants spring 

 up, but are easily and effectively destroyed by the 

 ordinary tillage of the corn. A lew bean plants 

 standing close to stalks of corn only escape the 

 plough, and are left to mature their seed. The 

 next February oats are eown on the same land. 

 The beans, from seeds recently brought near the 

 surface by the ploughing, come up so much later 

 as not to injure the oat crop; and, when the latter 

 is reaped, early in July, the thick under-growth of 

 beans is not more than 4 to 6 inches high. In 

 August it is in full growth and luxuriance, and re- 

 mains so until the plants are killed by Irosf, after 

 which the land is ploughed for corn aaain, ;ind 

 llie same severe course of cropping is kept up [)er- 

 petually. It is one of the excuses given lor that 

 scourging system of tillage, that the benefit of 

 the fertilizing bean crop can not otherwise be had. 

 For if a year of rest (ollovv the oat crop, (as in 

 the three-shift rotation) the bean growtli gives 

 way on the third year to other volunteer growths 

 — and if the change be made permanent, that 

 tlie growth of beans becomes thinner and thinner 

 every rotation, until its important use and value 

 are lost. The cleaning tillage of a ploughed 

 crop, (as corn,) as often as every other year, seems 

 to be essential to the best growth and certain 

 succession of the bean crop. I have tried in 

 vain (by sowing the seeds) to obtain a good co- 

 ver of this plant on land under the (bur-shift ro- 

 tation. A very thinly sprinkled growth only 

 stood, even on land as sandy as the general cha- 

 racter of the Eastern Shore lands. On such 

 sandy larul, in Prince George, Surry, and proba- 

 bly elill more in other lower counties of eastern 

 Virginia, the plants are furnished by nature, but 

 60 sparsely as to be scarcely noticed, and not of 

 any appreciable value for the quantity or size. 

 It seems to me that the saltness of the soil, which 

 13 continually subject to be covered by ihe vapora 



of •tl>e Atlantic ocean, and sometim£s even 



violent storms, is as important to the growth ol 

 this plant, -ds iheeandiness of the land, and its 

 peculiar rotation of continually recurring grain 

 crops. This opinion has not been advanced 

 by any of those better acquainted with the plant, 

 but has been Ibrmed upon ray own failures to pro- 

 duce a good growth far from the influence of the 

 sea, and from the superior growth seen on the 

 lands most exposed to that influence, even though 

 the most unproductive under any other growth. 

 On one of the sea islands which is so sandy that all 

 cultivated crops were very mean, and where the 

 highest storm tides swept nearly over the whole 

 island, I saw the general bean growth was far 

 more tall and luxuriant than on the richest lands 

 of the peninsula. At the time, I attributed this 

 to the excessive proportion of sand in the soil — 

 but since, its saltness has seemed a more probable 

 cause. If this interence be correct, salt must be 

 a specific manure for the Eastern Shore bean; 

 and through thi-^ green manuring crop, the ma- 

 nuring effect of salt is produced indirectly upon 

 the cultivated crop. 



' The correctness of this supposition, that salt is 

 a specific manure to the Eastern Sfiore bean, 

 miirht be easily tested by applying a very light 

 dressing of salt to some ol' the growth in a place 

 far remote from the sea.* E. R. 



SANDY BEACH BEAN. 



Cassia aspera, Muh. Strigose, rough: leaves in 

 many pairs, linear, lanceolate, ciliate : peduncles 

 lew flowered, above the axils: stamens seven to 

 nine : three longer. 



Habitat. Sea-shore. Annual. Flowers from 

 July to September. Can be distinguished fi-om the 

 other species of cassia by the hispid stems. M. T. 



Of this plant I know of no name applied by 

 any other person, and of course have no eyno- 

 nymes to furnish. I have never seen it except as 

 growing on the Coggins Point beach, and that of 

 the adjacent larm, in Prince George county, and it 

 IS not more than seven or eight years since I first 

 observed it there. To my eye, it was in appear- 

 ance precisely like the Eastern Shore bean, and 

 in every respect, except in being of much taller 

 and stronger growth, and forming a much heavier 

 cover on the land where it stood thickly. It 

 stands generally above ihree feet high, often (bur; 

 and a plant standing alone has been (bund five 

 lijet high. The plants grew in the almost pure 

 river beach sand, barely above ordinary high 

 water mark, and reached by high tides. This 

 locality was not supposed to be that preferred by 

 the plants, but (urced upon them because the 

 seed had floated there on the river. But subse- 

 quently facts induced me to change ihat opinion. 

 I was so impressed with the supposed value of 

 this plant, (or a green crop, and its apparent su- 

 periority in product to the Eastern Shore bean, 

 that with great labor I saved about a gallon of 

 seed, and sowed them with wheat in autumn on 

 a sandy marled field. The next year showed a 



* Tfiis plant, and its value in connexion with till- 

 age and improTement, were noticfid at lengtli at page 

 234, 5, vol. iii. Farmers' Register, in an account of a 

 visit to the Eastern Shore of Virginia, by the editor. 



