130 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
in hills or drills, especially in rough ground, 
it is customary to pull the vines by hand, 
which being light work, and demanding a 
good deal of stooping, may also, like the 
dropping of the seed, be performed by chil¬ 
dren. As the bean-vines are pulled they are 
thrown into small heaps, and sunned daily 
like hay. As soon as sufficiently dry, they 
should be taken to the barn, threshed, and 
the straw stacked. We have never found it 
answer to stack beans before being threshed ; 
they have invariably become dark-colored 
or spotted, and in addition to this, we lost 
more or less by rot and mold. Another 
good method of curing beans is, to take poles 
or stakes (common fence-stakes) into your 
bean-field, and set them stiffly in the ground, 
at convenient distances apart, which experi¬ 
ence will soon show you, and put a few 
sticks or stones around for a bottom, and 
then, as you pull an arm-full, take them to 
the stakes, and lay them around, the roots 
always to the stake, as high as you can 
reach, and tie the top course with a string, 
Qr a little straw, to prevent them from being 
blown off. Where there are no stones at 
hand, use small chunks of wood in their 
place. In the more stony and silicious soils 
of the eastern States, the stakes are unneces¬ 
sary, beans will cure well enough on the 
bare ground. After being threshed, the 
beans should be cleaned in the same man¬ 
ner that grain is, and then put into barrels 
or sacks and sent to market. The whiter 
they are in color, and the neater they appear, 
the quicker they sell, and the higher price 
they bring. 
Product. —This varies greatly according 
to soil and cultivation. When planted with 
corn, 7 to 12 bushels is a fair yield per acre ; 
when planted alone, 20 to 25 bushels. We 
are persuaded that, by subsoiling even the 
poorest gravel land, and lightly top-dressing 
it with the proper kind of manure, from 30 
to 35 bushels per acre may be counted upon 
as an average ; and if so, beans would be a 
much more profitable crop than any thing 
else which could be produced from it. The 
highest product which we have known taken 
from a single acre was 53 bushels, but we 
have heard of 60 bushels being raised. 
Value. —White beans of a good quality, 
well cleaned, and neatly put up, usually 
bring from $1 to $1 75 per bushel in this 
market; and occasionally they are worth 
from $2 to $2 50. At the moment of writ¬ 
ing this article, the better qualities of white 
beans are selling at $2 75 to $3 per bushel. 
We do not recollect of their being less than 
$1 for years. The straw is valuable as food 
for sheep, and when properly cured they eat 
it with avidity. In a chemical analysis of 
beans, it is found they abound with a greater 
quantity of the elements of wool than any 
other grain or vegetable ; to make sheep 
produce heavy fleeces, they are therefore 
particularly desirable as food, and such is 
their natural fondness for them, that they 
will eat them with avidity, whole or ground, 
even in a damaged state. To our store- 
flocks during the winter season we gene¬ 
rally gave a pint of beans per head per day, 
and when we had not. these, we fed peas, 
oats, and potatoes. Corn is good for fatting 
sheep, but not so valuable as beans, peas, 
oats, and most other kinds of grain, for the 
production of wool. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
TURTLE-SOUP BEAN- 
I take the liberty of calling the attention 
of your readers to the subject of cultivating 
this very superior bean, which, I believe, is 
very little known or properly appreciated in 
this section. 
As early as 1846, while I occupied “ Three 
Hills Farm,” I was presented with about 
two quarts of black beans, by my friend and 
neighbor, Mr. Wm. Cooper, who brought 
them from the south. They are of rather 
small size, kidney-shaped, of a jet black 
color, and highly polished skin. 
They proved to be an early dwarf variety, 
and remarkably prolific—far more so than 
any other variety I ever cultivated. They 
proved also to be decidedly the best snap or 
string bean , that has ever fallen under my 
notice, as a general crop for family use. Its 
superiority over the ordinary bush beans 
consists in the tenderness and excellent 
llavor of its pods, and the long time which 
they continue fit for use—certainly three 
times as long as the common dwarf bean. 
And when only one variety of dwarf bean is 
cultivated, I would most assuredly recom¬ 
mend this variety as decidedly preferable to 
the old sorts ; and it bears abundant crops 
on dry soils, where several others fail. 
It is said to have taken its name from the 
superior flavor of the ripened beans in soup, 
which has very much the flavor and color 
of mock-turtle soup, without the trouble of 
browning. 
From the two quarts I planted, I obtained 
on harvesting, after using them very freely 
when green, three and a half bushels. 
While I kept the American Hotel in Alba¬ 
ny, I frequently had soup made from them, 
in the same way that mock-turtle soup is, 
with force-meat balls of veal, and seasoned 
highly, and not one at table but supposed 
the soup was made of a calf’s head. We 
afterwards had a soup made without the 
force-meat balls, and the flavor was equally 
good; and it has been pronounced fully 
equal, if not superior, to that usually made 
from a calf’s head. 
They are cultivated the same as any other 
dwarf or field bean. 
Having given the history and method of 
cultivating this bean, it is, perhaps, no more 
than right that I should give a recipe for 
cooking the same. 
Mock-Turtle Bean Soup. —Take one quart 
of turtle-soup beans, wash and put them to 
soak the night before you wish to make the 
soup. In the morning put them on the fire 
in eight quarts of water, with a knuckle of 
veal, and boil until soft—which will take 
about four hours ; after which, strain them 
through a coarse sieve, and pul it on the 
fire, with three onions chopped fine, one 
table-spoonful of whole cloves, one table¬ 
spoonful of summer savory, half a tea-spoon 
of cayenne and one tea-spoonful of black 
pepper, and boil the whole another hour. 
For force-meat balls, take one and a half 
pounds of veal, half a pound of grated bread, 
one quarter of a pound of fat salt pork, and 
chop fine together ; season with summer 
savory, red and black pepper ; make it into 
small balls and fry them in butter. When 
ready to dish up, put the balls into a tureen, 
and pour on the soup. This will make about 
six quarts of soup. 
Some cooks add a lemon cut into thin 
slices, and half a pint of Madeira, Teneriffe, 
or Port wine, and the yolks of six eggs boiled 
hard. C. N. Bement. 
New-Brigliton, May 1, 1855. 
THE CULTURE OF MUSTARD, 
BV A PRACTICAL FARMER. 
There are two varieties of Mustard com¬ 
monly cultivated, both of them for a seed 
crop, and one of them occasionally for a 
forage and as a green manure crop. As this 
is about the time for putting them in, we will 
give a short account of them, and their cul¬ 
tivation, management, and produce. The 
two varieties are known as the “ Brown 
Mustard,” and the “ White Mustard.” 
The Brown Mustard is that variety which 
produces the seed from which that well- 
known yellow powder is manufactured, and 
used as a condiment at every table. It is 
esteemed for its pungency of taste, and 
when mixed with water for service, it passes 
under the distinctive appellation of “ mus¬ 
tard,” and is served at the table in “the mus¬ 
tard pot.” From the seed of this variety is 
also obtained a considerable produce of oil, 
of good quality, used for burning in lamps : 
but in this respect it is inferior to the 
white variety. The plant of the brown 
mustard grows very luxuriantly, and to a 
great height. The little deep-red grain or 
seed, as the Scripture hath it, “ indeed is the 
least of all seeds ; but when it is grown, it 
is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a 
tree, so that the birds of the air come and 
lodge in the branches thereof.” This is a 
true and beautiful description .of the growth 
of the plant. Its stem and leaves are rough 
and prickly, and pods smooth, in most re¬ 
spects similar to that pest of all lands, gar- 
lick, charlock, wild mustard, or by whatever 
name it is known, except in its highly culti¬ 
vated gigantic growth, and productive quali¬ 
ties. 
The White Mustard. —This is by no means 
of such prodigious growth ; it is very simi¬ 
lar to the common radish plant; when left 
to produce seed, it grows rapidly, however, 
and yields a large produce of both forage 
and seed. The forage, or full-grown green 
crop, is often plowed in as green manure. 
The seed is a round, yellow grain, like to 
coriander seed, and produces a good yield of 
oil of excellent quality for burning in lamps ; 
and, when distilled with water, both varieties 
furnish a volatile oil of great pungency, 
which is frequently used to raise blisters and 
for purposes medicinal. 
Cultivation. —The brown mustard requires 
land of rich quality. It is usually sown as 
a first crop in breaking up loams, and soils ol 
somewhat above medium quality ; in such 
cases the land should be plowed early in 
March, at a moderate depth, and should lie 
sufficiently long to allow the decomposition 
of the grass sods or sward ; this will gene¬ 
rally take place in three or four weeks, and, 
as the surface will in that time become 
loose and moldy, sowing may commence, 
and be continued up to the midddle of April. 
This should be done broadcast, and the 
quantity of seed need not be more than one 
