264 CULTURE OF FARM CROPS. 



sary that it should be added. Mr. Huxtable recommends 

 an artificial manure in which lime is present, and which 

 is as follows : ten bushels of lime, two cwt. of super- 

 phosphate, five bushels of salt and ashes. Mr. Crother, 

 in his Prize Essay in the Eath and West of England 

 Society's Journal, states, that if the land has been limed, 

 the farmer had better depend upon some nitrogenous sub-- 

 stance as a top dressing ; and for this purpose, he says, 

 nothing is better than guano, at the rate of three cwt. to 

 the acre. If this cannot be easily obtained, apply twenty 

 or thirty bushels of soot, with three or four bushels of salt. 

 As regards the after culture of beans, all that has to be 

 said is simply this, that on the plants reaching that height 

 which prevents the working of hand or horse hoes, the 

 crop is left to itself to take its chance. What this chance 

 is we shall see, as we now come to describe the " enemies 

 of the crop." 



DISEASES OF THE BEAN CROP. 



61. The first enemy, the attacks of which the bean has to 

 contend against, is the " millipedes," which commence to 

 eat the seed-bean almost immediately after it has been put 

 into the soil. The attacks of these insects are either so 

 complete as to entirely destroy the germinating power of 

 the seed, or to weaken it so much that the plants resulting 

 are weak, and liable either to be killed by frosts, or to be par- 

 ticularly obnoxious to those diseases, or to the attacks of 

 the insects which infest the crop at a later period of its 

 growth. The names of the millipedes who thus attack 

 the seed-beans shortly after being put in the soil, are the 

 latus pulchellus, and Polydesmus compluratus, of the habits 

 of both of which, a full account will be found in vol. 5, p. 

 228 of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of 

 England. The seed-beans are much more liable to be 

 attacked in cold and wet seasons than in comparatively 

 warm and dry ones. Should the seed-beans committed to 

 the soil fail to be attacked by these millipedes or false 

 wireworms, and make such progress as fairly to appear 



