DIFFERENT PLANS OF SOWING BEANS. 259 



plants relatively to one another, securing to each plant 

 abundant supplies of light and air. 



55. With reference to the practice of different districts 

 in sowing beans, Professor Donaldson, in the Prize Essay 

 on beans and pease in the Journal of the Bath and West 

 of England Society, has some interesting remarks, of which 

 a resume will be useful here. On the Plastic and London 

 clays, broadcast sowing of the crop is imperative, the waxy 

 tenacious nature of the soil preventing all drilling and 

 dibbling being properly or economically done. The crop 

 is thinly planted, and the cleaning is effected by hand- 

 hoeing while the plants are not high ; open furrows are 

 left, which renders the operation of hand-hoeing more easy. 

 On soils of this description, beans are introduced after a 

 wheat stubble, and followed by a crop of oats, then comes 

 a fallow ; by this arrangement the clover crop is taken once 

 only in the eight years, in place of once every four. The 

 farming in such soils as those now under consideration 

 leaves, and it may be said, keeps the land foul arid most 

 displeasing to the eye of one accustomed to another and 

 a better system. The plants being thinly set, the ground 

 is exposed, and becomes rapidly dry and parched, arid 

 hand-hoeing, such as it is, rendered difficult and uncertain, 

 weeds are therefore got rid of with difficulty, if at all, and 

 many grow up to seeding. In the best classes of viscous 

 clays of this sort we art now considering, when the original 

 deposits are mixed with chalk and chalky marls, the soil 

 is capable of bearing a thicker set crop which proportion- 

 ately keeps down the vigour of the weeds ; nevertheless, 

 even in such lands the farming is foul enough. On the 

 pure clays first named, the average return of the bean crop 

 is 16 bushels per acre ; the return on the modified clay 

 mixed with chalk or chalky marl at 24 bushels. On the 

 pure tenacious clays of the lias, clunch, or Kimeridge for- 

 mation, beans are also sown on the broadcast system, but 

 fairly thick sowing is permissible, which tends to keep 

 down the weeds, and shading the soil, renders it less baked 

 and cracked and more fitted for hand-hoeing. In some 



