KITCHEN-GARDEN PLANTS. CHAP. 



bean-planter ; and, therefore, these gentry must be kept 

 down,which they easily are, however, by brick-traps,which 

 gardeners know very well how to set. The depth at 

 which the larger beans are sowed is about three inches, 

 and the smaller ones about two inches and a half j but, 

 in every case, all the earth drawn out of the drill, should 

 be put in again upon the beans, and trodden down upon 

 them with the whole weight of the body of a stout man ; 

 for the more closely they are pressed into the ground, 

 and the ground is pressed upon them, the more certainly 

 and the more vigourously will they grow ; and the more 

 difficult, too, will it be for the mice to displace them. 



; .-.- 7; ..' 



124. BEAN (KIDNEY), which the French call 

 HARICOT. The varieties here are perfectly endless ; 

 but there are two distinct descriptions of the kidney- 

 bean, dwarfs, and climbers. The mode, however, of pro- 

 pagating and cultivating is the same in both cases, except 

 that the dwarfs require smaller distances than the climber, 

 and that the latter are grown with the assistance of poles 

 which the former are not. This is a plant, very different, 

 indeed, in its nature, from the feve, or, English bean : 

 it is a native of a warm climate j very sensible of frost, 

 and only one degree more hardy than the cucumber, and 

 not at all more hardy than the squash. The very slightest 

 frost checks the growth of the plant and changes the 

 colour of the leaves j and, the leaves are absolutely 

 scorched up by frosts not sufficient to produce ice no 

 thicker than gauze j so that, we have here a summer 

 plant to all intents and purposes j a plant that must be 

 cultivated under cover of some sort, except at times 

 when there is a complete absence of frost. The general 



