October 16, 1884. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
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Sale of Bulbs by Messrs. Protheroe & Morris. 
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19th Sunday after Trinity. 
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Sale of Bulbs by Mr. Stevens, Covent Garden. 
FORCING FRENCH BEANS. 
0 maintain a supply of tliis vegetable from the 
end of October until pods can be gathered from 
the open ground in summer entails considerable 
care and labour. The production of Beans dur¬ 
ing the winter months is not the easiest of the 
many difficult tasks gardeners have to perform. 
Some contend that the production of Beans 
under glass is comparatively easy provided the 
necessary heat and convenience are at command, 
and it certainly is not difficult from February until they are 
ready outside. During that period of the year they will 
fruit with as much certainty and freedom as they will natur¬ 
ally in the open borders. But the case is very different from 
November until February, for whether grown in pots or 
planted out in pits more than six times the number of plants 
would then be required to keep up the supply. In the 
depth of winter when the days are short and sunless it is 
difficult to induce the plants to grow strongly and fruit freely. 
If fifoy pots at that season yield a good dish—and they will do 
very little more—it requires a large number to supply three 
or four good dishes every week. The supply of heat may be 
abundant for the purpose, but this is not so great a difficulty 
in many gardens as finding space in which to grow and 
fruit the plants. Four or five hundred pots of Beans require 
considerably more room than can be properly allowed for the 
production of one vegetable. Moreover, if French Beans are 
to be grown successfully they must occupy the best positions 
in the houses. 
During the months indicated they can be grown in pots 
more successfully than by any other means. They are also 
more accommodating, as they can be more readily moved, 
which in many instances proves an advantage where space is 
limited. They are certainly as well in narrow shallow boxes 
as in pots provided the boxes are not too long or too heavy 
to be removed easily and quickly when required. Up to the 
present time we have found Beans anything but satisfactory 
when planted out to fruit during December and January. 
The latest batch outside, if the necessary precaution has 
been taken to prolong the supply as long as possible, will be 
growing on a warm sheltered border protected with frames. 
To succeed these seed was sown in a heated pit, which is the 
most convenient place to grow them in for a supply during 
Novemoer. When in pits we usually spread a thin layer of 
manure upon the base, and upon this about 4 inches of soil 
composed, of that in which Cucumbers and Melons have been 
grown, with about one-third of fresh loam and one-seventh of 
decayed manure. The Beans are placed in rows 9 inches 
apart, and the plants as soon as they show above the soil are 
thinned to 2 inches apart in the row. It is a great mistake 
to have the plants crowded thickly, for they draw up weakly, 
and only a small quantity of fruit is produced in comparison 
With those that have room to grow sturdily and branch natur¬ 
ally. More failures occur in forcing Beans during the winter 
months through crowding than from any other cause. 
If the soil at sowing time is moist no water should be 
No. 225.—VoL. IX., Third Skries. 
given until the seed has germinated and the plants are show¬ 
ing above the soil, when they should never be allowed to 
suffer by an insufficient supply, neither should the soil during 
the winter be kept too wet. For the first supply under glass 
in autumn many cultivators sow early in pots or boxes and 
place them outside until the nights are cold and they are 
compelled to house them. This has been tried here many 
times, but never successfully, for the plants have not started 
freely after they were housed. It is a very much better 
practice to defer the sowing for a week later in the season 
and then grow them from the first in a warm atmosphere. 
By this means the return from the same number of plants or 
pots will be more than doubled. 
Some cultivators practise a system of pinching, but here 
no beneficial results have ever been attained by so doing. 
On the contrary, it is not worth consideration, for the plants 
are longer before they fruit, and this disadvantage alone is 
sufficient to condemn the system where time is an object, 
room limited, and supply expected. Another system of 
growing Beans in pots is to sow the seed in 3 inch pots, and 
afterwards transfer the plants into the pots in which they are 
to fruit. This we practised years ago, and thought until 
very recently that a method which had no advantages to 
recommend it had become obsolete ; but such is not the case, 
for it is still the rule in some establishments, and is carried 
out with as much persistence as if Beans could not be pro¬ 
duced by any other means. I do not for a moment doubt 
that they can be as successfully grown by this method as any 
other, but here, as in hundreds of gardens at the present 
day, it is a question of labour, and therefore cannot be 
tolerated. 
The system of half filling the pots with soil when the seed 
is sown, and then filling them to the rim or nearly so with 
rich material when the plants are established, is only a waste 
of labour, in addition to proving disadvantageous to the 
plants during the winter months. At that period of the year 
the plants under the most careful treatment are liable to 
“damp off” without assisting them to do so by placing a 
mass of soil about their stems. The soil is only wasted when 
placed in the pots after the plants have become established 
in half the quantity, for very seldom indeed do the roots 
come upwards to take possession of it; in fact, never during 
the winter months when growth is slow. 
When grown in pots—those G inches in diameter are the 
best—or in boxes 5 or 6 inches deep and the same width, 
and about 15 inches in length—which is a very useful and 
serviceable size for the winter, and large enough to accom¬ 
modate three rows of plants 8 or 4 inches apart from plant 
to plant in the roAV—the pots or boxes should be drained a 
little more liberally during the winter than is needed when 
the season has advanced. Those grown in pots to produce 
fruit after the month of February do not need drainage, for 
they do quite as well without it. A good layer of manure 
should be placed at the bottom of either the pots or boxes, 
and then filled within an inch of the rim with the compost 
already advised, and then the seed may be sown and covered 
about half an inch depth with the finest portion of the soil. 
There can be no doubt that when the season has well 
advanced and the days are gradually lengthening that very 
much the best returns can be obtained with the least possible 
trouble in watering and other labour by growing them 
planted out in heated pits. Sowings or plantings can be 
made in one, two, or three lights at intervals of a week or 
fortnight, according to the demand, and they give very little 
trouble afterwards in watering or keeping them free from red 
spider. Very few plants give the gardener such trouble as 
Beaus during the spring and early summer months, when he is 
compelled to grow them upon shelves at the back of vineries. 
Peach, and other houses. Such positions are very unsuit¬ 
able ; they are too dry and not sufficiently airy during bright 
hot weather, and it is next to an impossibility to keep them 
free from red spider. More than once I have had to grow them 
No. 1881.— Yol. LXXI., Old Series. 
