MODES OF SOWING BEANS. 255 



this department of other crop culture, we have again to 

 repeat, that no rule can be given applicable to all cases. 

 As a rule 2 down to 1-J bushels per acre may be taken 

 as the quantity of winter beans required ; while for spring 

 beans from 2 to 4 bushels per acre will be required. The 

 poorer the soil the greater the quantity of seed required. 

 52. The modes of sowing the crop, like those of the 

 wheat crop, are three in number and the same in character, 

 'namely, broadcasting, drilling, and dibbling. Of the first 

 of these it is scarcely necessary to state that, with a crop 

 such as the bean, which in one sense is a foul growing 

 one, it is bad, as where it is adopted it is quite impossi- 

 ble to keep the growing crop from the weeds which so 

 rapidly encumber it. Drilling is done by the ordinary 

 grain - drilling machine, but with the coulters and seed- 

 spouts made adjustable, so that the necessary distances 

 between the rows may be obtained easily. They should 

 be adjusted to sow the seed at a depth of not lees than 

 three inches, but nearer four in the majority of soils. In 

 Scotland, and also in many parts of England, drilling of 

 beans is effected by the " bean barrow," doing one row at 

 a time. Dibbling is usually done by the hand, and in a 

 very primitive way, a stick dibble being used to make 

 the hole, and the seed dropped in by hand. The work is 

 often done by women and children, and almost always done 

 in a careless slovenly way. The system of getting the 

 work done by paying so much per bushel or peck dibbled 

 in is obviously most absurd, and calculated to leave the 

 way open for all sorts of cheating careless work. Mr. 

 Vallentine on this point says, that those who adopt this 

 plan " not only encourage dishonesty, but put a complete 

 check upon cheap and perfect cultivation afterwards." The 

 same authority states that the opinion so generally held in 

 favour of dibbling, arises from a mistaken notion as to its 

 value ; he says that he has had both drilling and dibbling 

 done alternately in different fields for some years, and that 

 he never found any difference in the crop but what could 

 be traced to the work in either case not having been properly 



