BEANS. 
19 
at maturity When they become black-eyed, they are tough and strong 
tasted, and much inferior. 
2b save seed. —■“ Either plant some of the approved sorts early in the 
spring, wholly for that purpose, or leave rows of the different crops un¬ 
gathered, in preference to the gleaning of gathered crops. The pods will 
ripen in August, becoming brown and dry, and the beans dry and hard; 
then, pulling up the stalks, place them in the sun to harden the seed tho¬ 
roughly, after which thresh out each sort separately.”— Abercrombie. 
Use. —Mr. Cobbett says, “ In England there are some sorts of this bean 
used for horses and hogs; but there are several sorts used as human food. 
It is at best a coarse and not very wholesome vegetable, yet some people 
like it. It is very much eaten by the country people, in England, with 
their bacon, along with which it is boiled.” Bean flour, as Dr. Darwin ob¬ 
served, is probably more nutritive than that of oats, which appears by its 
effect in fattening hogs; and, from the relative prices of these articles, he 
was of opinion, that peas and beans, in general, supply a cheaper provender 
for horses and other animals. But as the flour of beans and peas is more 
oily than that of oats, it must be more difficult of digestion. Hence, when 
a horse has been fed with pulse, he will be less active for an hour or two 
afterwards, than if he had eaten oats. It will, therefore, be advisable to 
mix pollard or straw, finely cut, with peas and beans, before giving to cattle. 
Bean, Kidney. —This plant and its uses are too well known to require 
any description. The sorts mentioned in Russell’s Catalogue, are Kidney 
dwarfs , or string: —early yellow cranberry; early Mohawk, (which will 
bear a smart frost without injury ;) early yellow* six weeks; early Cana¬ 
dian dwarf; early dwarf cluster 5 early dun colored, or Quaker; early 
China dwarf; large white kidney dwarf; white cranberry dwarf; red 
cranberry dwarf; Warrington, or marrow; refugee, or thousand to one; 
Rob Roy ; white cutlass bean of Carolina. Pole or running beans: —large 
white Lima; saba or Carolina; scarlet runners; white Dutch runners; 
Dutch case-knife, or princess; red cranberry; white cranberry; (the three 
last mentioned string beans ;) asparagus, or yard long, dolichos sesquipedalis. 
The following directions for the culture of the bean in gardens are from 
McMahon : “ Towards the latter end of April, [or the fore part of May in 
New England,] you may plant a first crop of kidney-beans in the open 
ground. Select a warm, dry and favorably situated spot, and, having dug 
and manured it properly, draw drills an inch deep, and two feet or thirty 
inches asunder, drop the beans therein two inches apart, and draw the 
earth equally over them ; do not cover them more than an inch deep; 
for at this early time they are liable to rot, if cold or wet ensue. The 
kinds proper to be sown now are, the early cream-colored, speckled, yellow 
and white dwarfs.” 
Loudon gives the following directions for the culture of runners or po%z- 
