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VI. — Method of growing Beans and Cabbages on the same Ground. 
By The Earl of Lovelace. 
To Ph. Pusey, Esq. 
My dear Sir, — I have great pleasure in replying to your inquiries 
as to the manner of growing the double crop of beans and cab- 
bages, the latter of which only you saw upon the ground last week. 
The beans are dibbled in February in double lines 4 inches apart, 
and with an interval of 3 feet to the next row. This enables the 
double mould-board or the subsoil plough to pass freely along 
without injury to the beans as often as the state of the soil may 
require it, until the time of planting the cabbages. The latter 
are of the thousand-headed sort, and should have been raised the 
previous autumn — then pricked out in March (in a corner of the 
garden), and finally planted in their places between the rows in 
the field in May or June, taking advantage of showery weather 
for the purpose. The distance from plant to plant is about 2 feet ; 
they should be from 5 to 8 inches out of the ground. They do 
not grow much until after the beans have been removed, which 
is generally done early in August — when the latter are gone, 
the space they occupied is ploughed, and the cabbages grow with 
such rapidity as effectually to prevent any weeds from making 
head that season. No one, ignorant of the practice, sporting over 
the field in the beginning of September, would imagine that the 
then luxuriant crop was the second of the season. 
The cabbages yield a great bulk of green food towards Christ- 
mas, and if their leaves are then pulled, a second sprouting takes 
place at the end of March or the beginning of April ; but as food 
is of much more consequence to a breeding flock at the latter 
period, they have been left (without plucking from them in 
December) till the turnips are over. They are then eaten on the 
ground by couples, and the land is ready with a single ploughing 
for any sort of spring corn. The quantity of keep derived from 
them by this arrangement is equal to what the same extent of 
turnips would give, but inferior to swedes. 
I was led to try the experiment for the first time in 1838, from 
having accidentally read an account of the husbandry of M. de 
Fellenbergh, at Hofwyl, in Switzerland, in which a similar custom 
is mentioned. The success has been complete, and it has never 
been omitted for a single year since its introduction at Ockham ; 
and I see that, so far from the bean crop being diminished (in 
consequence of the greater distance at which the rows are planted 
to admit the cabbages between them), it has, on the contrary, 
been increased from about 35 bushels the average yield for 5 
years before the mixture, to 41 bushels the average yield for 
