100 
THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
shaped trenches between the rows and fill them with water every 
evening for a week, or even a fortnight, at the time when the plants 
are advancing into flower, and then to close the trench and give no 
more. As the flowers open, the black-fly will probably appear. 
Strange to say, although this fly sucks the juices of the plant, it is 
not olten injurious to an extent to cause anxiety, although, of 
course, we prefer to he altogether without it. As the fly usually 
afifects the top of the plant, because we may suppose of the 
tenderness of the tissues there, it is a good practice to pinch 
out the tops and burn them. It is usual to pinch out the tops 
as soon as the plants are fairly in flower and the young beans 
are visible at the bottom; but, if there is no fly present, the pinch- 
ing is not necessary, and is even objectionable when rudely per- 
formed, as it often is. The object of the topping is to prevent the 
production of an extravagant number of beans of comparatively poor 
quality, which may be expected if all the flowers are allowed to 
open and fructify. The books say, “ two or three inches of stem 
should be broken off but it would he better to say, pinch out the 
tops as far down as they can be severed with the thumb nail, as soon 
as pods are seen emerging from the lowest of the flowers. This 
will take off about an inch and a half, and the plants will remain 
vigorous. Severe topping lowers their vigour, for the leaves are 
their lungs, and the “ hacking” process that all Cockneys and 
rustics believe in, is always guarded against by the prudent 
gardener. 
If beans are required at the earliest possible moment, and the 
season for early sowing out-of-doors has been lost, we must have 
the aid of glass, and sow for transplanting. A gentle hotbed will 
start the seed nicely, but a strong heat will produce weak plants 
scarcely worth putting out. Sow on grass turves, laid grass-side 
downwards, or in boxes or pots, taking care to let the young plants 
have plenty of light and air, to keep them stubby from the first. 
The roughest of contrivances for shelter will suflice to push the seed 
forward and help the plants until the time comes for putting out. 
Select for them a warm south border ; get them out as early as pos- 
sible, choosing mild, showery weather for the transplanting, and plant 
them in shallow trenches, filling in round their roots with old rotten 
manure in a powdery state, or old leaf-mould, or whatever else of a 
similar nature may be at hand, to coax the tender roots into action 
speedily. 
The green plant is a first-rate fodder for milch kine, and there- 
fore if an extra breadth of beans is grown, they may be drawn as 
needed to amuse the cows, and give the grass land a better chance 
for haymaking. 
On several occasions we have had a second crop of beans from 
the same plants, having encouraged the suckers to rise by cutting 
down the stems that bore the first crop. It is only in a long, hot, 
showery season that the suckers rise sufilciently strong to produce 
anything, and then, so far as our experience enables us to say, they 
make hut a poor return for the ground they occupy. It is well, 
however, for the cultivator to know all that may be done, and it is a 
