GARDENING. 63 



When pulled for cooking, cut off the stalk end first, 

 and then turn to the point and strip off the strings. If 

 not quite fresh, have a howl of spring water, with a 

 little salt dissolved in it, and as the beans are cleaned 

 and stringed, throw them in. Then put them on the 

 fire in boiling water, with some salt in it; when they 

 are tender, which will be in about fifteen or twenty 

 minutes, pour them into a colander to drain. They 

 should always be cooked young, and then the best 

 method is to keep them whole, as it preserves their deli- 

 cate flavor and color. When a little more grown, they 

 must be cut across in two after stringing. 



Pole or running — Haricots a rames, — If your soil is 

 poor, make it rich. Plant in hills about four ^cat apart 

 each way, leaving three beans to a hill, during the se- 

 cond and third week of May. They are extremely 

 productive, and yield till stopped by the cold weather. 



BENE PLANT. — Scsamum orientale. 

 This was introduced into the Southern States by the 

 negroes from Africa. It abounds in many parts of 

 Africa. Sonnini and Brown, travellers in Egjpt, say it 

 is much cultivated there for the purpose of feeding 

 horses, and for culinary purposes. The negroes in 

 Georgia boil a handful of the seeds Avith their allowance 

 of Indian Corn. Probably no plant yields a larger pro- 

 portion of oil, which Dr. Cooper of Philadelphia has 

 pronounced equal to the finest olive oil. But it is 

 worthy of cultivation in the Northern States principally 

 as a medicinal plant. A gentleman in Virginia has 

 given Messrs. Thornburn &l Son the following account 

 of its virtues. '• It requires to be sown early in April, 

 at a distance of about one foot apart. A few leaves of 

 the plant, when green, plunged a few times in a tumbler 

 of water, makes it like a thin jelly, without taste or 

 color, which children afflicted with the summer com- 

 plaint will drink freely, and is said to be the best 

 rem.edy ever discovered. It has been supposed, that 

 (under Providence) the lives of three hundred children 

 were saved by it last summer in Baltimore, and I know 



