22 
AMERICAN KITCHfiN GARDENER. 
and as it was cut with a scythe, I estimated that about two and a half bushels 
were left upon the ground. No labor was bestowed upon them from the 
time they were sown till they were harvested. 77 
Forwarding an early crop .—The kidney bean is often partially forced, in 
hot-houses or frames, with a view to the forwarding of its produce in the 
open garden. Mr. Armstrong says, u In the neighborhood of cities, the 
dwarf varieties are often cultivated in hot-beds, but the product is of a very 
inferior kind; for, of the whole catalogue of vegetables, none is more apt to 
take a disagreeable flavor from hot and fermenting dung (which is the basis 
of these beds) than the bean. 77 It is probable, however, that beans might 
be forced to advantage, in hot-beds, composed of oak leaves, tanner’s bark, 
&c„ without deriving therefrom the disagreeable flavor complained of 
BEET. 
Beta Vulgaris.—Beterave, Fr .—Rothe Rube , Ger. 
Among the more common varieties of this valuable vegetable are, 
French sugar, or amber beet, 
Mangel vvurtzel, 
Green—for stews or soups, 
Yellow turnip-rooted, 
Early blood turnip-rooted, 
Early dwarf blood, 
Early white scarcity, 
Long blood red. 
Sown from April to June. The early turnip blood beet is the earliest, 
and of excellent quality for summer use; the tops being good for boiling as 
greens. Mr. Loudon’s directions for the general culture of the beet are :— 
u Seed and Soil .—The beet is always raised from seed, and for a bed four 
feet and a half by twelve feet, one ounce is requisite. The soil in which it 
naturally delights is a deep, rich sand, dry and light, rather than moist. 
Sowing in seed beds, and transplanting has been tried; but though it may 
answer for spinage or pot-herb beets, [white and its varieties,] it will not 
answer where the object is a large clean root. 
“ Sowmg .—The beet is sown annually the last week in March, or begin¬ 
ning of April, [in the northern United States, the main crop should be de¬ 
layed till the middle of May.] The gro ind on which it is sown should 
have been previously enriched by mellow compost and sea sand; but rank 
dung is not to be laid in, as it is apt to induce canker. For the long-rooted 
kind, trench to the depth of eighteen inches.. Sow either broad-cast on the 
rough surface, and rake well into the earth; or, as the seed is large, sow in 
drills an inch or two deep and a foot asunder; or dot it in with a thick, 
blunt-ended dibble in rows that distance, making holes ten or twelve inches 
