BEANS. 



BEANS. 



means a great deal of grass is saved, which 

 may be reserved for hay. The cattle fed in the 

 stables or yards thrive well on this food, and 

 produce a quantity of rich manure, chiefly in 

 a liquid state, which fills the tanks and reser- 

 voirs, which are indispensable appendages to 

 every farm-yard. By having winter tares 

 when the turnips are consumed, peas and 

 beans after the first crop of clover, and sum- 

 mer tares to succeed them, cattle may be fed 

 in the stables all the year round with great ad- 

 vantage ; the land may be tilled at the best 

 season of the year and prepared for wheat, as 

 well as by a clear fallow, while the green crop 

 will fully repay all the expenses. Three 

 bushels of beans and two of peas, mixed to- 

 gether, are required per acre, when sown 

 broadcast or drilled in each furrow after the 

 plough. It is often advantageous to cut in a 

 green state those beans which were sown for 

 a general crop, when food for pigs is scarce. 

 They will go nearly as far in this way in feed- 

 ing store pigs, as the beans would have done 

 when ripe : and the ground is left in a much 

 better state for the following crop. {Penny 

 Cyclop, vol. iv. p. 82.) 



Many farmers have long and advantageously 

 adopted the practice of dibbling in their beans, 

 by which a great saving of seed is effected ; 

 neither are they required to be planted so early 

 as by the old system. Besides being more 

 evenly deposited in the soil, and properly co- 

 vered over, they are better preserved from 

 rooks, and other vermin that would destroy 

 them. Drilling, however, is still preferred by 

 most agriculturists, as being a less expensive 

 course. Both drilling and dibbling have each 

 great advantages over the broadcast system, 

 as by the latter method the land cannot be 

 kept clean. 



Some parties recommend the topping of 

 beans just as the blossoms are set, and a 

 that it not only improves the quality, but in- 

 creases the quantity, and causes them to ripen 

 sooner. They may be switched off with an old 

 scythe-blade," set in a wooden handle, with 

 which one man can easily top two acres a 

 day. Others object, and with much justice, to 

 this indiscriminate hacking and topping. The 

 reason for doing this in garden culture is, that 

 when a plant has borne pods a certain time, 

 it is most advantageous to remove it, and the 

 top blossoms, of course, never come to perfec- 

 tion. In the field this is not the case, there 

 being no succession of plants ; and, unless the 

 top blossoms are very late, or the black dol- 

 phin (aphis) begins to appear, which is shown 

 by the honey-dew on the upper shoots, no ad- 

 vantage is gained by topping the plants, and 

 the labour is thrown away. The bean crop is j 

 generally harrowed to destroy annual weeds : 

 sometimes just before the plants make their 

 appearance, and sometimes after the beans \ 

 have got their first green leaves, and are fairly | 

 above ground. After the beans have made 

 some growth, the horse-hoe is employed in the 

 intervals between the rows, and followed by '' 

 the hand-hoe, for the purpose of cutting down 

 such weeds as the horse-hoe cannot reach ; all 

 the weeds that grow among the beans should 

 be pulled up with the hands. The same ope- 

 20 



rations are repeated as often as the condition 

 of the land in regard to cleanliness may re- 

 quire. 



When the leaves of the beans begin to lose 

 their green colour, and the pods to turn black, 

 the crop should be reaped with the sickle, and 

 made into small sheaves, tied with straw-bands 

 or tarred twine, and set up in the field to drv. 

 But if the haulm is short, as that of the long- 

 pod and mazagan generally are, it is a more 

 profitable course to pull them up by the roots, 

 and lay them in sheaves, the same as if cut, by 

 which means the lowest and earliest pods are 

 better preserved and harvested. Mr. J. C. 

 Curwen, M. P. (Com. to the Board of Agr., vol. 

 iv. p. 390) gives some details of the result of 

 experiments made in 1803 and 1804, of cutting 

 beans whilst in a perfectly green and fresh 

 state. Forty acres of beans were drilled iu 

 February, 1804. and from May to the middle of 

 July the ploughs ami harrows were constantly 

 at work in it. By the 10th of August, the beans 

 had shot the black eye, which is the criterion 

 of seeds being perfectly formed. The weather 

 proving unfavourable, prevented their being 

 reaped immediately, but they were eventually 

 cut on the 20th of August, spread thinly, and 

 exposed two days to the sun previous to bind- 

 ing and removing to an open pasture, where 

 they remained three weeks, and were then 

 found perfectly dry and fit for stacking. Mr. 

 Curwen adds, as a strong proof of the benefit 

 resulting from these early cuttings, that he 

 was enabled, previous to drilling with wheat, 

 to give the ground two ploughings, harrow- 

 -., and in some parts three (the extreme 

 foulness of this piece of land requiring what in 

 few instances would be necessary); and to 

 cart and spread sixty loads of compost per 

 acre, and to complete the whole by the 20th of 

 September. Mr. John Sherif, of Haddington 

 (Com. Board of Agr., vol. iv. p. 172), also says 

 of harvesting beans, "This crop should be cut 

 down as soon as the eye has attained its 

 deepest dye, and instantly, if dry weather, 

 sheaved. The sheaves of any grain or pulse 

 ou-ht not to exceed nine inches in diameter; 

 and 1 think that sheaves from six to eight 

 inches would be far safer in this variable cli- 

 mate. By cutting at this period of the state of 

 the crop, the bean-straw will be of triple value 

 of what stands till the leaves fall off; the grain 

 too will be superior to that bleached by the 

 weather for weeks, after the haulm and grain 

 of the first is secured in the rick. Shocks of 

 any crop of pulse or grain ought not to exceed 

 six sheaves of the above-mentioned size." 

 The Rev. John Ramsay, of Ayrshire, and Mr. 

 John Boys, of Kent, also give the result of their 

 observations on bean husbandry (Com. Board 

 of Agr., vol. vi. p. 141 146), which, though 

 valuable, are of too confined and local a na- 

 ture for me to notice. 



The diseases to which beans are subject in 

 England, are the rust, or mildew, which is a 

 minute fungus that grows on the stems of 

 leaves, attributed to cold fogs and frequent 

 sudden transitions of weather, and the black 

 dolphin or fly, also called the collier, an insect 

 of the aphis tribe. For the mildew no remedy 

 has yet been found. Whenever it has attacked 



153 



