MANURING FOR BEANS. 263 



on the surface, and scarified into the soil. Decisive trials 

 are wanting to decide the question between top-dressings of 

 artificial manures and farm-yard dung, which appears, how- 

 ever, to be the true manure for the crop. " Top dressings 

 rather assist a bad, than produce a good crop." Beans are 

 an excellent preparatory crop for wheat, and appear to be- 

 stow greater benefit upon the land, and to take less from 

 it, than any other cultivated crop. But to fulfil these 

 conditions, the land, says an authority, must be well pre- 

 pared, and the crop drilled, carefully cleaned from weeds; 

 or if sown broadcast, thick, so as to cover the soil and 

 shade it. Where the broadcasted crop is thin and 

 straggling, low in stature and puny in growth, the land is 

 exposed and gets hard, rendering not only hand-hoeing 

 difficult, but affording empty spaces in which weeds luxuri- 

 ate. In clays of the poorest kinds which will not admit 

 of thick - sown broadcasted or of drilled crops, beans 

 should be avoided, as they only fill the land with weeds. 

 Beans are often classed as a green or fallow crop, but they 

 are not strictly so, for they perfect their seeds in the same 

 year in which they are grown, and in the rotation of 

 modern systems, a green crop is that which does not 

 perfect its seed in the year of its growth ; and is that 

 which follows a crop bearing its seeds the same year. The 

 beans, nevertheless, cultivated in the improved modes, of 

 more than one of which we have given description, is still 

 a valuable preparatory crop; it admits of a fair amount 

 of stirring and weeding, and the soil is ameliorated by 

 the action of the tap roots which descend into and open 

 it up. 



60. We have already pointed out the physical condition 

 in which the soil requires to be for the bean plant ; as re- 

 gards the chemical condition, being what is called a cal- 

 careous crop, drawing much lime from the soil, the great 

 essential is, that the soil should have this lime. Hence, we 

 have seen, that from the soils formed of clay mixed with 

 chalk and sand, the richest crops are obtained ; if, then, 

 lime is absent, or at best but sparingly present, it is ueces- 



