THE AMATEUR’S KITCHEN GARDEN. Cl 
objectionable as food, but there can be no question about the 
green pods, as we are accustomed to eat them, carefully cooked, 
of a fine green colour, and tender as the slice of butter that 
the prudent cook will never fail to place on the top of the 
smoking pile when they have been drained and dished for 
table. An invalid may eat a dish of French beans or scarlet- 
runners late at night without danger, and that is a peculiar 
test of the wholesomeness of the dish ; for, with the exception 
of spinach, there is scarcely any other vegetable that a weak 
stomach dare encounter when the mid-day hours have passed. 
Kidney beans will grow fairly, and produce useful fruit in 
the most trashy soils and unpromising situations. There is 
scarcely a plant known to the cultivator of vegetables that 
will endure long-continued drought with so little harm as the 
dwarf French bean ; and as to our old familiar friend, the 
scarlet-runner, it is no uncommon thing to see it thriving in a 
sort of cinder-bed, heavily shaded by trees, in the garden of 
the cottager whom the love of beer has seduced, and in whose 
garden, therefore, “the thorn and the thistle grow broader and 
higher.” But the capabilities of a plant to endure insult are 
not sufficient to justify careless cultivation. For that, indeed, 
it should be shown that good treatment renders the kidney 
bean unproductive, while a hap-hazard life is conducive to its 
prosperity. It so happens, as a matter of fact, that this 
plant enjoys good living, and never fails to make an ample 
return for it. The lesson is consequently patent — it must be 
well grown in order to attain complete development, and make 
its owner happy by its bounteous dower of delicious fruit. A 
deep, fertile loam suits the kidney bean to perfection. The 
situation should be open, sunny, and sheltered. The plant is 
one of the most tender, and though it bears drought in a 
remarkably satisfactory manner, cold and excessive moisture 
soon bring it down to the dust or mud. The soil for runners 
should be especially well prepared by trenching and manuring, 
but the dwarf kidney beans do not so much need manure, 
though they will always pay for it, if in other respects they 
are managed in a sensible manner. 
Now, as everybody grows these plants, it may seem an over- 
stretch of nicety to talk about “ sensible manner,” but we are 
bound to begin finding fault with everybody, by saying that 
everybody sows the seed too thick, and leaves too many plants 
on the ground. The weakest-growing sorts of kidney beans 
