v.] KIDNEY-BEANS. 71 



bean in all other respects, but having a white seed and a white 

 blossom. These are called rough runners, because the pod differs 

 from that of other kidney-beans in being rough instead of smooth. 

 These are most admirable plants : they bear prodigiously ; their 

 product is, perhaps, the most delicate of all ; and, from the latter 

 end of July, until the actual coming of the frosts, they continue 

 to blow and to bear without the least relaxation, let the weather 

 be as hot or as dry as it may. The Dutch-runner is not a very 

 great bearer, and it gives out in a comparatively short space of 

 time : it will, too, have good cultivation and favourable aspect ; 

 whereas the rough runners will grow in the shade, will climb up 

 hedges and trees, will suffer their stems to be smothered with 

 weeds, and will continue to ornament whatever they cling to, and 

 to produce in abundance at the same time. But there is one pre- 

 caution applicable to all sorts of kidney-beans, which must be by 

 no means neglected ; and that is, to take care that no pods be left 

 upon the plant, to contain beans approaching to a state of matu- 

 rity ; for, the moment there are such pods, they draw away all the 

 strength of the plant to themselves, and it would produce no more 

 pods fit for use. It is the same with the cucumber, suffer one 

 cucumber to become large and yellow, and to begin to ripen its 

 seed, and not another young cucumber will come upon the same 

 plant. As to the sorts, or varieties, of dwarf beans, the yellow 

 dwarf, that I have imported from America, I have found to be 

 the earliest by several days, and also the greatest bearer. There 

 is the black dwarf, which is deemed early also. The speckled 

 dwarf is a great bearer, but not so early. The best way, probably, 

 is to sow one row of each on the same day ; and though the dif- 

 ference in the time of coming in may not be much, it may be some 

 thing, and nothing ought to be neglected in the case of a vegeta- 

 ble so universally and so justly esteemed. It is curious that the 

 Americans should follow the example of the French with regard to 

 the use of the produce of the kidney-bean. They eat them, as we 

 do, in the pod ; or, rather, they eat the pod, as we do ; but they 

 eat them more frequently in the bean itself, and that at two different 

 stages, first, when it has got its full size in the pod, and when, to 

 me, it appears a very nasty thing ; and second, they eat them as a 

 winter vegetable : they soak them and boil them. The French do 

 the same, and I can by no means discover that this was ever the 

 practice in England. The seed of the kidney-bean may always be 



