BEAN. 



39 



a valuable crop , and, with good care, are as profitable 

 as a wheat crop. They leave the soil m good tilth. The 

 China bean, with a red eye, is to be preferred. They ripen 

 early, and eire very productive. I cultivated beans the last 

 year in three dilferent v/ays, viz. in hills, in drills, and 

 sowed broad-cast. I need not describe the first, which is a 

 well knov/n process. I had an aci-e in drills, which was 

 ii the best crop I ever sav/. My management w^as this : — On 

 an acre of light ground, where the clover had been frozen 

 out the preceding winter, I spread eight loads of long ma- 

 ' nure, and immediately ploughed and harrowed the ground, 

 ji Drills or furrov/s were then made with a light plough, at 

 ! the distance of two and a half feet, and the beans thrown 

 along the furrows about the 25th of May, by the hand, at 

 j the rate of at least a bushel on the acre. I then gauged a 

 I double mould-board plough, v/hich w^as passed once be- 

 tween the rows, and was followed by a light one horse 

 roller, which flattened the ridges. The crop w^as tv/ice 

 cleaned of v/eeds, by the hoe, but not earthed. The pro- 

 duct was more than forty-eight bushels, by actual measure- 

 I ment. The beans brought me one dollar the bushel last 

 i fall. The third experiment was likewise upon a piece of 

 ground where the clover had been killed. It was ploughed 

 j about the first of June, the seed sown like peas, upon the 

 I first furrov/, and harrowed in. The drought kept them 

 back ; but about 65 rods of ground, on which the experiment 

 was made, gave a product of twelve and a half bushels. 

 The crop vv^as too ripe when it was harvested, and as it was 

 cut with a sithe, I estimated that about two and a half 

 bushels v/ere left upon the ground. No labour was be- 

 stowed upon them from the time they were sow^n till they 

 w^ere harvested." 



Forwarding an early crop. — ^The kidney bean is often par- 

 tially forced, in hot-houses or frames, with a view to the 

 forwarding of its produce in the open garden. Mr. Arm- 

 strong says, In the neighbourhood of cities, the dwarf 

 varieties are often cultivated in hot-beds, but the product 

 is of a very inferior kind; for, of the whole catalogue of 

 vegetables, none is more apt to take a disagreeable flavour 

 from hot and fermenting dung (which is the basis of these 

 beds) than the bean." It is probable, however, that beans 

 might be forced to o.dvantage, in hot-beds, composed of oak 



