TUE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
101 
fact that ia a favourable season a second crop may be taken from 
the same plants. 
As remarked above, the bean is rich in phosphates and alkalies, 
and hence is an exhaustive crop. There is nothing better in the 
way of manure than good stable dung, half-rotten, and the ground 
should be deeply broken up ; but guano may be employed with ad- 
vantage, and the best mode of procedure is to sprinkle a little at 
the bottom and on the sides of every trench as the digging proceeds. 
The gypsum or plaster of Paris recommended above should be spread 
on the surface and hoed in amongst the young plants. In one 
thousand pounds weight of beans, which we may reckon as the pro- 
duce of half an acre of ground, there will be of mineral matters ; 
phosplioric acid, 10 lbs. ; lime, 3 lbs. ; magnesia, 2 lbs.; potash, 14 lbs.: 
common salt, | lb. It follows, therefore, that a heavy loam or clay 
land, rich in alkalies and phosphates, is the proper soil for beans 
when a large and fine production is required ; but almost any soil 
may be rendered suitable by judicious manuring, and, as a rule, the 
best special manure available is phospho-guano. 
In selecting sorts it is well to remember that there are some very 
bad ones in the market. The Red Seeded and the Red Flowered are 
about the worst that we are acquainted with, and we caution the 
amateur against the latter in particular, because it is occasionally 
advertised as an ornamental plant, producing an abundance of the 
most delicious beans. The truth is, it is one of the ugliest, least 
productive, and obnoxious-flavoured vegetables that ever found its 
way into an honest man’s garden. For early production. Dwarf Fan 
and Mazacjan are the best, and, being small growers, they may be 
sown in rows, closer together than other varieties. For mere pro- 
duction, the Long^ods are the most profitable, and answer admirably 
where beans are grown for sale, the true Johnson's Wonderful Long- 
pod being of excellent quality and tremendously productive. Having 
tried all the sorts many times, we have adopted two, and never grow 
any others. These are : Earlg Mazacjan, to sow in November, January, 
and June, for early crops of delicate beans; and Green Windsor, to 
sow in January, February, and March, for supplies of the handsomest 
and best-flavoured beans obtainable. We give the last-named plenty 
of room, and put the rows four feet asunder, and never fail to have 
a long-continued and abundant supply of the finest beans in the 
world. S. H. 
The Struggle for Life among Plants.— Each plant endeavours, almost con- 
sciously, to destroy Ills neighbour, to occupy his ground, to feed upon his nutriment, 
to devour his substance. There are armies and invasions of grasses, barbarian 
inroads and extirpations. Every inch of ground is contested by the weeds ; the 
forest is a struggle for precedence ; the wars of the roses is a perennial feud. The 
serenest landscape, the stillest woodland, are the mortal arena of vegetable and 
animal conflict. Tlie last number of the Fopiclar Science Review contains an inte- 
resting paper on “ The Battle of Life among Plants.” Experiments are described 
where numbers of plants were placed together in the same bed, and certain plants, 
after a few years, alone remained, the others having succumbed. One of the most 
persistent was found to be the couch grass; and in general plants with a large root 
area showed most vitality in all soils. 
April. 
