38 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
The United States Patent Office—Agricul¬ 
tural Department—is sending out consider¬ 
able quantities of seed ; and at the recent 
meeting of the United States Agricultural 
Society, it was voted to purchase and dis- 
‘ribute seed enough to plant one hundred 
acres (if it can be got). We still extend the 
invitation to all our subscribers who have 
not yet applied. but who desire to experi¬ 
ment on a small scale, to send in a ready 
directed , post paid (3-cent) envelope, and we 
will enclose them a package in due time. If 
our supply grows short, we shall have to di¬ 
minish the amount to one hundred and fifty 
or two hundred seeds each, instead of the 
three hundred now being sent out. 
We have received a number of comnrtini- 
cations on the subject, from which we select 
and give the following two : 
Cold Spring Hardor, L. I., N. Y., Jan. 21, ’57. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist. 
.Last year I found it produced a very 
sweet juice, and I saved enough seed from ten 
plants to put in half an acre. One half I ted out, 
and found horses, pigs and cattle, eat it. with 
avidity, though when ripe, owing to the flinty 
skin, the latter could not eat it. The balance, 
after breaking the joints with a mallet, I passed 
once through a rude self-constructed pressing 
apparatus, and it. produced, when boiled down, 
seventy gallons of good syrup or molasses, which 
I am daily using in my family. I am so well sat¬ 
isfied with my past year’s experience, that another 
year I shall plant several acres, and with a good 
machine that will press all the juice. I have no 
doubt but I can produce eight to ten barrels to 
the acre, at a cost not exceeding twenty-five cents 
the gallon. I see no reason why, in a few years, 
every farmer who can raise Indian corn should 
not raise his own molasses, as the same climate 
is favorable to both, and I have little doubt but it 
will be the case. I have omitted mentioning that 
when cut down for fodder, at about four feet high, 
it sprouts again and produces a good second 
crop. J. D. Hewlett. 
Kingsville, Ohio, Jan. 1, 1857. 
To the Editor of the American Agricuturist: 
.... Last spring we received a paper of the 
Chinese Sugar Cane Seed from the Patent Office, 
by Hon. J. R. Giddings, which we planted in four 
rows, four stalks in a hill, eleven hills in a row. 
We cut it up about the I7th of October, stripped 
the leaves from the stalks, crushed it, and cut it 
into short pieces, and boiled it in water. The 
liquid was then strained through a coarse cloth, 
boiled down to molasses, and to our great sur¬ 
prise we found that we had made two gallons of 
quite palateahle molasses. I do not think we 
expressed all the juice that we might if we had 
been more experienced in making it. We think 
of raising a larger quantity another year. The 
cattle of Mr. I. H. must have had quite unusual 
tastes if they would not eat this nutritious food, 
for ours ate it both before and after it was 
boiled—in fact, they would leave good pasture, 
and eat it up before leaving it. 
A Lad of Fourtf,en. 
We omit the name of our intelligent cor¬ 
respondent by request.. 
Why is a cowardly soldier like butter? 
Because he is sure to run when exposed to 
fire. 
It is said that a favorite pair of horses 
with the Emperor of France were raised in 
Lewis County, N. Y. 
A CHAPTER ON BEANS. 
“ You don’t know beans with the bag un¬ 
tied” is a rural proverb, putting down a 
neighbor’s knowledge at a very low figure, 
if not the lowest. Yet upon cross-examina¬ 
tion, it might appear that many who depre¬ 
ciate their neighbor's knowledge touching 
beans in the open bag are not themselves 
adepts in this vegetable. Their acquaintance 
is limited to white beans cultivated between 
corn, in the field, and to case-knife beans 
that run upon poles in the garden. Of the 
scores of varieties that may be found in al¬ 
most any of our agricultural warehouses 
and seed stores, they would be unable to tell 
the names with the bag tied or untied. 
The knowledge of these finer varieties, 
especially the kidney family and the Limas, 
ought to be diffused wherever there is a gar. 
den in which they can be made to grow. 
There is as much difference in beans as in 
any other product of the garden, and the cul¬ 
tivation of the old inferior varieties ought to 
be discarded. 
HISTORY. 
This is one of the vegetables longest cul¬ 
tivated. It goes back to Greece and Rome, 
and even to Egypt and Barbary, in the earli¬ 
est ages. Bean soup was no doubt a favor¬ 
ite pottage of the Israelites in the valley of 
the Nile, and with the leeks and onions was 
an object of their longings amid the journey- 
ings of the wilderness. It is from the East 
that we have received our varieties, through 
the mediation of French and English culti¬ 
vators. But beans are neither more nor less 
valuable on account of their antiquity. We 
mention it, as evidence of the high esteem 
in which they have been held as a vegetable 
in all ages. This popularity is accounted 
for in the fact that they are among the most 
nutritious as well as palatable of all vegeta¬ 
bles used for human food. 
According to the chemist Einhof, the pro¬ 
portion of nutritive matter io beans is even 
greater than that of wheat, which stands 
highest among the grains, containing sev¬ 
enty-four per cent., while French beans 
contain eighty-four per cent 
Sir Humphrey Davy gives as the analysis 
of kidney beans in 3,455 parts : 
Starchy matters. 1,805 
Albumen and matter approaching flesh 
in its nature. 851 
Mucilage. 799 
Total.3,455 
Beans have a peculiar principle termed 
legumen, which is analagous to casein, the 
animal principle in milk. No vegetable in 
the garden is so good a substitute for meat, 
and will go so far in sustaining the strength 
of the laboring man. 
VARIETIES. 
There are several distinct families of the 
bean, and numerous varieties originated by 
hybridizing and by change of climate and 
cultivation. 
The English Dwarf Beans, emdracing the 
Early Long Pod, Broad Windsor, Early 
Mazagan, and some half dozen other varie¬ 
ties, are a coarse article, and have been 
nearly driven out of all good gardens by 
The Kidney Dwarf Beans, embracing the 
Early Mohawk, Early Six Weeks, Early and 
Late Valentine, the White, Red, and Yellow 
Cranberry, and some dozen other varieties. 
These are known among the marketmen as 
Bunch Beans, Snap Shorts, and String 
Beans. In England, they are generally 
known as French beans, and some splendid 
and very prolific beans have been sent out 
from the Patent Office recently, under this 
name. Any of these varieties of the Kid¬ 
ney family are far preferable for a dish of 
baked beans to the common white field bean. 
THE CULTIVATION 
of these dwarfs is no more difficult than that 
of the field bean, if seasonably planted. 
They are very tender, almost as much so as 
a melon, and for that reason should not be 
planted in this latitude before the middle of 
May, in the open ground. If the ground is 
not well warmed by the sun, they are very 
liable to rot, or, in case they come up, to be 
cut off by the slightest frost. In sheltered 
localities, or where artificial warmth is im¬ 
parted to the soil by underdraining and high 
manuring, it may do to plant a week or two 
earlier. For a succession through the sea¬ 
son, they should be planted at intervals of 
two weeks, until the first of August. They 
are usually planted in double drills, about 
two inches apart, the drills fiom eighteen 
inches to three feet apart. They delight in 
well-decomposed manures, and in light, well- 
drained soils. They require frequent stir¬ 
ring of the soil, but should never be hoed 
when the dew is on, or when the vines are 
wet. 
POLE BEANS. 
The garden hardly affords a more beauti¬ 
ful sight than the department allotted to this 
crop, when the runners cover the poles, 
making thick massive pyramids of green, 
variegated with blossoms of white, pink, and 
the most brilliant scarlet. We have seen 
many less brilliant spectacles in the flower 
garden. The pole beans are more prolific 
than the dwarfs, and require more room 
Here, 
THE KIDNEYS 
occupy a prominent position, and are the 
best known of all the varieties. The English 
reckon six varieties : Scarlet Runner, Large 
White, Large White Dutch, Canterbury, 
Small White, Variable Runner. These are 
cultivated in this country under these and a 
great variety of other names, for there is 
nothing in the garden more confused than 
the nomenclature of beans. The Butter 
beans, Asparagus, and the Cranberries, be 
long to this family. They are all excellent, 
but none of them equal to 
THE LIMA BEANS, 
which should be the main crop for family 
use, wherever the climate will admit of 
their cultivation. The only drawback to 
them is that they require a longer season 
for ripening than the Kidneys, and in the 
northern parts of New England are an un 
certain crop. But even here they may be 
raised for use while green, by procuring 
seed ripened in a more southern climate, 
and it is not improbable that the skill of the 
gardener will so shorten its period of matu- 
