V. KIDNEY-BEAN. 



time for sowing kidney-beans, in ground quite open, 

 when there is no shelter of any sort, and where covering 

 is wholly impracticable, is the first of May. I beg the 

 reader to bear this in mind : I have tried the thing often 

 enough : nine times out of ten, earlier sowing does no 

 good j and even sowing at this time has frequently been 

 found too early. I have had my kidney-beans all cut off 

 in the month of June j and, therefore, if crop be the 

 object, the first week in May is quite early enough, 

 especially for the climbers. But, people wish to have 

 some small portion, at any rate, of so capital a vegetable, 

 as early as they possibly can. Those who have the 

 means, have them all the winter in hot-houses j but a 

 hot-bed or hot-beds are insufficient for such a purpose. 

 In our case, therefore, we must be content with the south 

 face of a wall, which, if made proper use of for this 

 purpose, will produce beans from twelve to twenty days 

 earlier than they can be had in perfectly open ground. 

 A single row put in, two inches deep, close to the wall, 

 the beans at about three inches apart in the row, about 

 the tenth of April, and earthed up to the seed leaf as soon 

 as they are above ground, and kept carefully screened 

 from frost every night by the leaning of a board or some 

 other thing against the wall -, a single row of these beans, 

 being also of the earliest sort, will, in the south of 

 England, produce beans fit to gather in the last week of 



-1 i. 



June ; while the same sort of beans sowed in the open 

 ground at the same time, will either rot in the ground 

 and never come up $ or will, after coming up, be so in- 

 jured by the weather as to be overtaken by beans sowed 

 early in May, and will, after all, not produce a crop half 

 so abundant. A good general time for sowing the first 



