=^; 





\ / 





'/-rrrv^! 



^ 









Forwarding Lima Beans. — The question is asked in your Notes and 

 Gleanings, November, 1870, p. 291, "Cannot somebody tell us how to grow 

 Lima Beans, so as to have them ripen in this northern climate early enough to 

 get more than one or two messes before frost ? " 



As I had in my garden Limas in perfection for more than two months, and 

 on exhibition in Massachusetts Horticultural Hall, August 13, and, September 

 10, received the first prize, I take the liberty to communicate my mode of cul- 

 ture, believing it will be of some interest to amateur cultivators, if not to others. 

 The beans were planted in box frames (" cucumber boxes," so called by market 

 gardeners), about the first of May, in the cold grapery, transplanted into open 

 ground May 30. " Cucumber boxes " are' simply sides of a box seven inches 

 wide at the top, eight inches at bottom, and six inches high. The box being one 

 inch smaller at top than bottom, allows plants, when transplanted in open ground, 

 to slip out easily without injury. A warm exposure was selected, the soil well en- 

 riched and pulverized, and the boxes containing the plants taken from the cold 

 grapery (a cold frame will answer as well), by placing a shovel under the box to 

 prevent the plants from being disturbed in the removal. The boxes were placed 

 about three and one half feet apart, the earth heaped on the outside of the box even 

 with the top, and the box was then lifted, drawing it off over the plants. The plants 

 were undisturbed by the change, and grew finely, a month or six weeks being 

 gained by this mode of culture. " Cucumber boxes," purchased at the box man- 

 ufacturers for six dollars and a half per hundred, will last many years, and be 

 equally useful for melons, cucumbers, squashes, etc. B. G. S. 



Evergreen Ridge, Cambridge, Mass. 



VOL. IX. 7 113 



