70 



KITCHEN-GARDEN PLANTS. 



[chap. 



general time for sowing the first dwarf beans for a crop is the first 

 of May ; to have a constant supply, you should sow on the first of 

 every month, August inclusive. The climbing beans should be 

 sowed about the 10th of May. The culture of beans is a very easy 

 matter. For the dwarf sorts, you make drills two feet apart and 

 two inches deep, lay the beans along at three inches asunder, lay 

 the earth over them and tread it dow^n hard. As soon as they 

 are up, which is very quickly, draw the earth from both sides (but 

 not when it is wet) close up to the stems, quite as high as the bot- 

 tom of the stem of the seed leaf, and then give all the ground a 

 good deep hoeing. The dwarf beans want nothing more than this : 

 they push on at a great rate ; they begin to show their blossoms 

 in ten days, and, if the frosts keep away, you have beans in a very 

 short time. Even while they are producing, you can, if you please, 

 dig along the centre of the intervals, and there have another crop 

 of beans ; or, if you like better, savoys, broccoli, or other things 

 for the autumn or the winter. The beans are soon taken off, and 

 your ground is ready for any succeeding crop. As to the climbers, 

 they are sowed and cultivated in the same manner ; and they will, 

 if you please, creep about upon the ground : but that is not the 

 best way. They should be planted in a double row, same depth 

 as the dwarf beans, and the two rows about six inches apart. 

 Then there should be an interval between each two double rows 

 of five or six feet ; they should be earthed up in the same man- 

 ner as described for the dwarf beans, and, as soon as earthed up, 

 the poles should be put to them. The poles ought to be about 

 eight feet long, and there ought to be two rows of poles to every 

 double row of beans, not placed upright, but diagonally ; and 

 placed on the internal side of the beans. The poles on one side 

 of the double row ought to point one way, and those on the other 

 side the other way, forming together a sort of rough trellis work. 

 Beans will go on climbing and bearing till they get to the top . There 

 are two very distinct varieties of these climbers. One has a white 

 seed, and has the perfect kidney shape, the pod is very long and 

 perfectly smooth. This is called the Dutch runner, and is very 

 highly esteemed. The other variety has a seed not so flat, of a 

 black and red colour, it has a short pod, compared with the other, 

 and that pod is rough, instead of being smooth, and the blossom is 

 red, instead of being white, as in the case of the Dutch runner. 

 But there is a white sort of this bean also, like the red-blossomed 



