36 



BEAN. 



several sorts used as human food. It is at best a coarse and 

 not very wholesome vegetable, yet some people like it. It 

 is very much eaten by the country people, in England, with 

 their bacon, along with which it is boiled." Bean flour, as 

 Dr. Darwin observed, is probably more nutritive than that 

 of oats, which appears by its effect in fattening hogs ; and, 

 from the relative prices of these articles, he was of opinion, 

 that peas and beans, in general, supply a cheaper provender 

 for horses and other animals. But as the flour of beans 

 and peas is more oily than that of oats, it must be more 

 diflicult of digestion. Hence, when a horse has been fed 

 with pulse, he will be less active for an hour or two after- 

 wards, than if he had eaten oats. It will, therefore, be 

 advisable to mix pollard or straw, finely cut, with peas and 

 beans, before they are given to cattle. 



BEAN, KIDNEY.— PAaseoZw-s vulgaris,— This plant 

 and its uses are too well known to require any description. 

 The sorts mentioned in Russell's Catalogue, are Kidney 

 dwarfs^ or string : — early yellow cranberry ; early Mohawk, 

 (which will bear a smart frost without injury ;) early yel- 

 low six weeks ; early Canadian dwarf; early dwarf cluster; 

 early dun coloured, or Quaker ; early China dwarf; large 

 white kidney dwarf ; white cranberry dwarf; red cranberry 

 dwarf ; Warrington, or marrow; refugee, or thousand to one ; 

 Rob Roy ; white cutlass bean of Carolina. Pole or running 

 beans: — large white Lima; saba or Carolina; scarlet run- 

 ners ; white Dutch runners ; Dutch case-knife, or princess ; 

 red cranberry; white cranberry; (the three last mentioned 

 string beans ;) asparagus, or yard long, dolichos sesquipedalis. 



The following directions for the culture of the bean in 

 gardens are from McMahon : " Towards the latter end of 

 April, [or the fore part of May in New England,] you may 

 plant a first crop of kidney-beans in the open ground. Select 

 a warm, dry, and favourably situated spot, and, having dug 

 and manured it properly, draw drills an inch deep, and two 

 feet or thirty inches asunder ; drop the beans therein, two 

 inches apart, and draw the earth equally over them ; do not 

 cover them more than an inch deep ; for at this early time 

 they are liable to rot, if cold or wet ensue. The kinds 

 proper to be sown now are, the early cream-coloured, 

 speckled, yellow and white dwarfs." 



Loudon gives the following directions for the culture of 



