The Garden Magazine, April, 1920 



103 



Quarter Century, or Wonder Bush are to-day, both Ford- 

 hook and Burpee- Improved are bound to supersede as soon as 

 seeds can be produced in sufficient quantity. The third 

 of the really pedigreed Bush Limas is Extra Early Wilson or 

 Extra Early Giant Bush, a comparatively new comer which 

 is the product of persistent selection for earliness. Its pods do 

 not average any larger than those of Fordhook, and contain 

 flat beans which bulk less, but they are ready for picking from 

 5 days to a week before any other bush variety with the excep- 

 tion of the old Wood's Prolific. This however is fairly obsolete. 



The Worth While Tall or Climbing Sorts 



AS IN the case of Bush Limas, the Pole varieties started 

 i to make most rapid strides in popular favor after a new 

 variety some twenty years ago almost revolutionized Lima 

 Bean growing. Up to 1900, Large White Lima and its improved 

 form, King of the Garden, were the recognized leaders among 

 Pole Limas. They required such a long season, however, that 

 in most sections growers had to be satisfied with gathering 

 about half the pods set, for the frost would gather the other half. 

 Then came Henderson's Leviathan, marking the first forward 

 step toward shorter seasons of development for Pole Limas. 

 Its pods are not so large as those of the older kinds, nor are the 

 beans, but within 100 days Leviathan perfects a good portion 



of the pods that set early, and, where frost stays away for four 

 months, it is a most prodigious yielder of handsome pods, borne 

 in large clusters. 



About eight years ago a specialist on the Pacific Coast started 

 to experiment in selecting pods bearing a majority of green- 

 tinted beans. And four years of constant effort in one direction 

 produced highly gratifying results. In honor of its birthplace, 

 which is the home of all that is good in Limas, the new variety 

 was called Carpinteria; and in Carpinteria Lima we have un- 

 questionably the very highest quality Pole Lima in cultivation 

 to-day. In general character of pods or bearing qualities it 

 does not differ greatly from Leviathan except that the shelled 

 beans are more elongated and that all of them have the desirable 

 green tint. In season of bearing it will prove slightly earlier 

 than Leviathan, yielding the second picking when Leviathan 

 is just perfecting its first pods. 



Truly the leader of them all for size, Burpee's Giant Podded is 

 actually what its name implies. Monstrous pods 6 to 8 inches 

 long, containing from 5 to 7 beans an inch or more in diameter, 

 are ready to please those who look for size. And notwithstanding 

 these extraordinary dimensions, the young green beans are 

 quite thin-skinned and tender. Where long growing seasons 

 prevail and size is wanted this Giant-Podded form will find a 

 ready welcome. 



II. THE BEST CULTURE FOR LIMAS 

 ARCHIBALD RUTLEDGE 



*OR superlative quality 

 the seed of Lima Beans 

 should first be superla- 

 tive. In my own exper- 

 ience I have found this of vital 

 importance and by carefully se- 

 lecting Giant Pole Lima over a 

 period of six or seven years, with 

 a view to improving the strain I 

 have accomplished gratifying re- 

 sults. My method has been to 

 select the largest and most perfect 

 pods on the most vigorous vines 

 and permit these to ripen. From 

 the beans thus gathered, only the 

 largest and the most perfectly 

 shaped are used in planting; and 

 the insignificant amount of care 

 and patience required for this 

 performance is out of all propor- 

 tion to the abundant crops of 

 luscious Limas which it insures. 

 But the matter of seed is, of 

 course, not all. 



The soil is important though 

 Limas are tolerant in this respect 

 and can be successfully grown on 

 tough clays or light sands. There 

 must be friability, however, and 

 that texture which encourages 

 fine growth, and there must be 

 the proper amount of enrichment 

 and humus. I have grown them 

 in tough clay and mellow loam 

 with about equal success, but it 

 takes more work to grow them in 

 the clay for a more thorough pre- 

 paration is required. I spade each 

 type of soil very deeply in the 

 fall, letting it lie in the rough 



Unquestionably the iargest in 



pod and bean — Giant-Podded 



Pole Lima 



over winter for the action of 

 freezing and thawing to pulverize 

 the surface. In the spring the 

 loam is merely raked over and 

 "fined" by surface working, but 

 the clay is again turned under and 

 carefully pulverized. 



After seed and soil, the next 

 consideration is the kind and the 

 amount of fertilizer to use. Good 

 stable manure may be applied 

 very heavily, either in the fall or 

 spring, turned under, and mixed 

 thoroughly with the soil. If it is 

 old enough to be more like humus 

 than active fertilizer, it would be 

 hard to use too much. And dig 

 it in as deeply as possible! This 

 with leaf-mold, old compost and 

 chicken manure supplies all thev 

 need. They thrive on somewhat 

 liberal applications of the latter, 

 scattered on the surface of the 

 ground about the roots when the 

 Beans are flowering and setting 

 their first pods, and again when 

 they begin their second general 

 flowering. 



The question of supports for 

 Limas is, of course, confined to 

 the pole varieties. Unquestion- 

 ably, the tall Limas are more 

 productive; and, bearing their 

 fruit as they do high off the 

 ground, fewer pods are liable to 

 mold and mildew. I like the 

 Bush Limas in some ways, but I 

 have confined my experiments 

 almost wholly to the Pole Limas, 

 hence can speak from exper- 



