148 
but the very decided muslin renders them 
utterly valueless for the home garden. 
BUSH BEANS FOR SHELLING 
Bush varieties for green shell beans are 
most largely planted in New England and 
other cool locations where the season is too 
cool and short for success with the lima 
bean. Of this type the Goddard or Boston 
Favorite and the Dwarf Horticultural or 
Wren’s Egg are the most popular sorts. Of 
those grown for the dry beans, to be used 
during the winter months, the White Marrow- 
fat has seed of the popular type for baking, 
while the Boston Small Pea is planted for 
the small soup cr navy bean. 
POLE VARIETIES FOR SNAP-SHORTS AND 
GREEN SHELL BEANS 
The earliest variety of the pole-beans 
grown for snap-shorts is the White Crease- 
back, maturing in eight to ten weeks. 
This has a slender, very meaty round pod 
five to six inches in length, quite brittie, 
tender and entirely stringless. The dry 
beans are small and pearly white, making 
an excellent soup or navy bean for winter 
use. Next in season is the Southern Pro- 
lific, a slender, round pod six inches or 
more in length, of fine appearance and good 
flavor, but now almost entirely discarded 
for the larger, longer pod of the Old Home- 
stead or Kentucky Wonder. The latter 
is a strong grower and very productive, hay- 
ing large, round, meaty, ‘“saddle-backed”’ 
pods eight to nine inches in length which 
hang in clusters well out from the foliage 
and are easily gathered. On the other 
hand, the large pods are not as uniform in 
shape nor as attractive in appearance as the 
more slender pod of the Southern Prolific. 
In size and form of pod, Burger’s Stringless 
Green Pod is similar to the Old Homestead, 
but is a darker, richer green; the crop ma- 
tures a little earlier 
| in the season and 
| bears for a longer 
| time. ‘The seed is 
| pure white. In all 
respects I think this 
Pas tlle Wenybest 
early pole snap 
bean, but it is not 
yet generally 
(, known. As ‘an 
| early variety for 
cool locations, 
White Dutch Case- 
knife, one of the 
older sorts, is still 
the leader. It has 
a broad flat pod 
seven inches long, 
fairly fleshy, and 
besides being a 
good snap-short, is 
also grown for a 
green shell bean to 
be used like the 
limas. 
For summer use, 
the wax or yellow- 
podded pole varie- 
Ruby Horticultural, a 
favorite type of shell bean 
in New England 
THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 
ties are the best, the earliest being the 
Golden Cluster Wax, a strong grower and 
bearing a large crop of meaty, brittle, 
stringless, golden-yellow pods eight inches 
long. ‘The seed is pure white and excellent 
for use either as a green or dry shell sort. 
Sunshine Wax is similar in appearance and 
season, but the pods are slightly larger, 
the beans longer and reddish-brown when 
ripened. The Golden Carmine Horticul- 
tural is a very strong grower on rich soil 
and bears very large, handsome, golden- 
yellow pods of the finest quality for snap- 
shorts. As the pods become older they are 
brightly marked with carmine stripes and 
splashes, and the green shell beans at this 
stage havea peculiarly dry, chestnutty flavor. 
For a fall supply of snap-shorts, the Lazy 
Wife is the most popular, bearing large clus- 
ters of meaty pods, slightly flattened, and 
about four inches in length. The dry beans 
are almost round, pure white, and excellent 
Pole varieties are later than bush kinds and are 
often quite ornamental. Limas on the left 
for baking. ‘Two new varieties for fall use 
are the Powell’s Prolific and Royal Corn 
which succeed each other in season. Both 
are very strong growers and produce im- 
mense clusters of long, slender, round pods, 
seven to eight inches in length and of about 
the diameter of a lead pencil. Both are 
brittle and stringless and of fine flavor. 
They can readily be grown in the corn field 
and will be very largely planted when their 
merits become known. 
For summer use as green shell beans in 
New England and other cool locations, the 
Horticultural and the large-podded Worces- 
ter Mammoth Podded Horticultural are very 
largely planted. ‘They have dark green pods, 
which as the beans develop become heavily 
marked with carmine splotches. 
SHOWY FLOWERED RUNNER BEANS 
The “runner” beans form a group by 
themselves. They are strong-growing vines 
APRIL, 1908 
Round podded kidney waxis used as a snap short, 
or for shelling. Note the meatiness in section 
attaining a height of eight feet, with very 
large dark green leaves and long sprays of 
very showy blossoms. The pods are large 
— six inches long — thick and solidly meaty 
when young. Gathered at this stage they 
are sliced in very thin sections with a sharp 
knife instead of being broken like snap- 
shorts. 
These pods are a very deep green color 
with a rough, file-like exterior. The dry 
beans are very large (an inch or more long) 
and plump, of fine appearance, prettily 
mottled purple, violet and black, and they 
can be used as green shell beans like the 
lima. These runners are exceedingly popu- 
lar in Europe and are valued by gardeners 
in the cooler sections of this country. The 
scarlet runner, or fire bean, the best known 
variety, is frequently planted in the flower 
garden for its brilliant scarlet flowers. The 
White Dutch runner is similar in all respects 
except that the blossoms and dry beans are 
a pure paper white in color. Some of the 
recently introduced English sorts have a 
large pea-like blossom with a scarlet stand- 
ard and pure white wings. ‘These are very 
showy, but do not have as large a pod as 
the two varieties already named. 
THE TALL-GROWING LIMA BEANS 
The lima beans are a perfectly distinct 
class and, to my taste, the finest of all beans. 
They are warmth-loving plants and need an 
ample supply of sunlight and very rich soil 
to give the most satisfactory results. The 
pole or running type of the lima is the 
most largely planted, but the amateur gar- 
dener will probably find the dwarf or bush 
limas most convenient. ‘The several differ- 
eut varieties which may be classed into three 
distinct types are the Sieva, the Large White 
Lima and the Potato Lima. 
The Sieva or small lima is much the 
earliest type, having a small and slightly 
glossy leaf, and bears most abundantly, 
The small, smooth, shiny pods hang out 
from the foliage in large clusters. It is not 
unusual to count several hundred or as high 
as a thousand pods on a single well-grown 
pole. The pods measure three inches in 
length and usually contain three small, 
