FIELD NOTES. 



729 



flavored beans in existence, but much depends upon their 

 preparation. Doctors of the Chinese school attribute 

 medicinal properies to this bean, and order it as an ex- 

 clusive diet for kakc patients, a disease sometimes attack- 

 ing people who live largely or exclusively on rice. These 

 beans are cultivated like soy beans, as a second crop, in 

 rows two feet apart. Most varieties ripen in three months 

 from the time of planting. Japan produces annually 

 from a million and a half to two million bushels of this 

 bean. I imported a little seed of two varieties two years 

 ago, along with the soy beans already mentioned, and 

 they have yielded very satisfactorily, producing last year 

 twelve bushels to the acre. They ripen earlier than soy 

 beans, and are not such robust growers. 



MucuNA CAPITATA, Wright and Arnold ) Jap., Oshara- 

 humame Hasshomame. An excellent and prolific pole- 

 bean, which is often cultivated, though it is by no means 

 as common as the soy or the adzuki. It is not a native 

 — was probably introduced from India. The vine is 

 vigorous, and should be supplied with tall poles. The 



leaves are large, the terminal leaflet being smaller than 

 the two basal ones, and the latter unequally divided by 

 the midribs ; petiole six inches to one foot long. The 

 flowers are large, purple, a dozen or more in a spike ; 

 pods large, bristling all over with stiff and thick hair, 

 resembling the pods of the horse bean. The beans also 

 large, approaching Lima beans both in appearance and 

 quality, but are less flattened. There are from four to 

 six beans in each pod. On the opposite page is shown a 

 cluster of the pods, natural size, a portion of one being 

 split open to show the beans. 



This bean requires a long season, and I doubt if it will 

 mature north of Washington The Japanese use it as a 

 shell bean when it is nearly full grown, and in the fall it 

 is quite often seen in the baskets of peddlers and at 

 green-grocers'. The beans sometimes develop a pecu- 

 liar astringent taste, which I believe all good Japanese 

 cooks remedy by putting a piece of soda in the water 

 when the beans are boiled. 



R'ansas Agricultural College C. C Georgeson. 



FIELD NOTES. 



ABOUT WEEDS, RAINS, BERRIES, AND VEGETABLES. 



|NE of the most important jobs of late 

 fall is getting out the perennial weeds 

 from matted rows of strawberries. This 

 is often neglected entirely, while an- 

 nual weeds— those that the frost kills 

 — are sedulously weeded out, almost 

 up to the time when their career would 

 naturally be cut short. The worst perennial weeds, 

 with me, are sorrel, white clover and dock. The frost 

 checks the dock a little, but it makes a good deal of 

 growth in the intervals between frosts before winter sets 

 in, and by spring has such a strong root-growth that to 

 kill it one must cut at least two inches below the surface. 

 The sorrel and clover thrive amazingly in the cool, moist 

 weather of autumn, and soon occupy all the ground if left 

 to themselves. The removal of these, and such other 

 perennial weeds as may happen to spring up, is in Sep- 

 tember and October our catch-job, to be worked at when 

 there is nothing else to do. Mulleins, thistles, horsetail 

 and blue-grass are the weeds I find most troublesome, in 

 addition to the ones before mentioned. Chickweed, in 

 two or three varieties, is troublesome on some farms ; 

 but, fortunately, I have none. Perennial weeds thrive 

 amazingly under the raspberries, and it is not easy to 

 uproot them after midsummer if a catch-crop is growing 

 between the raspberries. 



This year I grew Ford Early sweet-corn among the 

 blackcaps planted in the spring. Because of the wet 

 weather I could not plant the corn uatil June ; conse- 

 quently it could not be cut up and removed until after 

 September i, and by that time it was necessary to get the 

 raspberry-tips in the ground as fast as possible ; so there 

 was no time to do any hoeing. Although the season was 

 unfavorable for sweet-corn, so that this year it was not 



very profitable, I like it better than potatoes for planting 

 with blackberries and raspberries, and I shall hereafter 

 plant the earlier varieties, that in ordinary seasons will 

 be out of the way by August 10. This will give me a 

 couple of weeks to clear up and hoe the ground before it 

 is necessary to bury the raspberry-tips. 



One of tbe tasks that is always in order on a berry- 

 farm, especially where blackberries are grown to any 

 extent, is clearing up. This year of wet weather has 

 given great luxuriance to everything in the way of weeds 

 and brush, and with 24 acres in orchards and berry- 

 patches, it has been no small job to even mow down 

 growths that we do not want. I generally cultivate 

 blackberries thoroughly previous to May 20, going eight 

 times over the seven-foot spaces, and doing the work at 

 two jobs, about two weeks apart. This mellows the soil 

 and leaves the ground tolerably clean if we have a reason- 

 ably dry June. About August i I have the spaces mowed 

 to make picking the berries pleasanter ; but this year, hav " 

 ing a market for plants, and not wishing to injure the suck' 

 ers by mowing in midsummer, the mowing was omitted. 

 It was so wet when we cultivated that stirring the soil 

 killed very little of the perennial growth, and by August 

 15 there was a fine show of golden-rod, fire-weed and 

 quill-weed, from four to eight feet high, with plentiful 

 lower growths of ragweed and horsetail. I thought 

 to cut these out with a grass-hook before beginning to 

 pick blackberries, but help was scarce, work interfered, 

 and the cutting was neglected. Altogether, the briar- 

 patches present a very untidy appearance, but I had a 

 good crop of berries, which sold at high prices, so I can 

 put np with the untidiness, especially as this season's 

 planting of blackberries, raspberries, etc., is reasonably 

 clean and shows a luxuriant growth. 



