THE KIDNEY-BEAN. 



637 



be planted where it will not only produce excellent crops, but afford shelter or 

 shade to a >valk, a seat, a grassplot, a cucumber bed, or a temporary arbour. 

 Where sticks or rods are scarce, wires or even twine may be substituted, and in 

 this way the scarlet runner may be trained against wooden walls, pales, or other 

 fences, or made to cover the walls of a cottage. The following mode of 

 arranging pack thread, or hempen lines, for the support of scarlet runners, 

 is practised in the neighbourhood of St. Petersburg. Take half-inch and 

 two-inch wide rods or laths, join them at top as in fig. 878, a, so as to 

 leave the ends a few inches beyond the junction ; stick the lower ends 

 into the ground, just within the lines of the plants. Connect these 

 triangles by similar rods at the bottom, as at b, about three inches above 

 the soil. Take a cord, fix it firmly to the lower bar ; carry it over the 

 upper bar, which is placed in the cross formed by the long ends left, as 

 shown in the figure. Make a loop a yard long, carry the cord again over the 



Fig. 378. Prop for Climbing Plants. Fig. 379. Section of the Prop for 



Climbing Plants. 



plank (that is, round it), and fix the other end to the lower rod on the other 

 side. In like manner go on through the whole length, taking care to make 

 the loops all of the same length. Through these loops suspend a long stick 

 or bar, the section of which is shown in fig. 879 ; hang to this bar bags of 

 sand, as many as may be wanted. Train the plants up the strings, and when 

 j they are well grown the whole will be covered, and when in flower the ap- 

 j pearance will be very ornamental. By this method, the cords being fixed 

 at the lower bars will not pull the plants out of the earth, the tension and 

 contraction of the cords being counteracted by the bar suspended in the loops, 

 which is raised or lowered by every change of atmospheric moisture ; so 

 much so, indeed, that it serves as an hygrometer. (G. M., 1841, p. 211). 

 In some market gardens in the neighbourhood of London, very abundant 

 crops of the scarlet runner are obtained without staking, hy merely stopping 

 the plants after they begin to form pods. By this treatment they also con- 

 tinue longer in bearing, when the pods are to be gathered green ; but when 

 seed is to be ripened, it is found best to stake the plants. 



I 1399o Gathering. — Care should be taken not to let any of the pods ripen, 

 otherwise these will attract all the strength of the plant, and prevent in a 

 great measure its future growth, for the production of young pods (p. 614). 

 The kidney-bean is sometimes attacked by the aphides, but its greatest ene- 

 mies in the open garden are the snails and slugs. A few plants should be 



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