GARDENING FoR ALL. 57 
The middle of May is the best time for sowing the main 
crop, and other sowings may be made to the middle of July 
for the purpose of keeping up a constant supply of tender 
pods. Sow in drills two feet apart, or, if it is desired to 
inter-crop the ground, sow them three feet apart and plant a 
row of sprouts or cauliflowers between each row of beans. 
As the tender foliage is easily destroyed by rough 
weather care ought to be taken to sow these beans in a 
sheltered position. Manure liberally for all beans. 
RUNNER BEANS.—(Phascolus muitiflorus). 
This was introduced from South America in 1633, and iS 
one of the most valuable and useful occupants of the kitchen 
garden. It isa profitable crop for the market gardener, and 
invaluable to the cottager. 
The scarlet runner is not amenable to forcing in pots, 
but it readily adapts itself to various systems of out-door 
culture. It can be made at once most ornamental and 
useful. It may be trained to form lovely arcades, bowers, 
bushes and cones or columns; and it is often grown as a 
dwarf bean, without sticks. Thousands of acres are grown 
on the latter method for supplying the London and provincial 
markets. They are sown in drills thirty inches or three feet 
apart, and the tops are pinched off when about two feet high. 
Sowing generally commences at the beginning of May, but 
plants raised early are liable to be destroyed by frost at the 
end of May and early in June. The fifteenth of May is the 
safest time for sowing, because the plants do not make their 
appearance above the soil much before June, and, therefore, 
are not so liable to injury. 
The market gardeners of Worcestershire usually sow at 
the beginning of May, and in drills three feet apart. The 
earliest beans in the market necessarily command the best 
price, therefore they deliberately incur a little risk, and then 
attempt to make up for any possible loss by planting 
cauliflowers between the rows ot beans, early in June. If the 
beans escape injury, and the cauliflowers are a success also, 
so much the better for the grower. 
