“It stands to reason that sick plants need medicines of some kind.  Sometimes to be sure they need better living conditions.  Often the soil is sour, water-logged, unaired and totally unfit for a self-respecting plant to live in.  The whole thing resolves itself into a study of conditions, and a desire to help the plant have as comfortable a time as possible in life.”

IX

VEGETABLE CULTURE

“As a rule, boys and girls choose to grow bush beans rather than pole beans.  I cannot make up my mind whether or not this is from sheer laziness.  In a city backyard the tall varieties might perhaps be a problem since it would be difficult to get poles.  But these running beans can be trained along old fences and with little urging will run up the stalks of the tallest sunflowers.  So that settles the pole question.  There is an ornamental side to the bean question.  Suppose you plant these tall beans at the extreme rear end of each vegetable row.  Make arches with supple tree limbs, binding them over to form the arch.  Train the beans over these.  When one stands facing the garden, what a beautiful terminus these bean arches make.

“Beans like rich, warm, sandy soil.  In order to assist the soil be sure to dig deeply, and work it over thoroughly for bean culture.  It never does to plant beans before the world has warmed up from its spring chills.  There is another advantage in early digging of soil.  It brings to the surface eggs and larvae of insects.  The birds eager for food will even follow the plough to pick from the soil these choice morsels.  A little lime worked in with the soil is helpful in the cultivation of beans.

“Bush beans are planted in drills about eighteen inches apart, while the pole-bean rows should be three feet apart.  The drills for the bush limas should be further apart than those for the other dwarf beans—­say three feet.  This amount of space gives opportunity for cultivation with the hoe.  If the running beans climb too high just pinch off the growing extreme end, and this will hold back the upward growth.

“Among bush beans are the dwarf, snap or string beans, the wax beans, the bush limas, one variety of which is known as brittle beans.  Among the pole beans are the pole limas, wax and scarlet runner.  The scarlet runner is a beauty for decorative effects.  The flowers are scarlet and are fine against an old fence.  These are quite lovely in the flower garden.  Where one wishes a vine, this is good to plant for one gets both a vegetable, bright flowers and a screen from the one plant.  When planting beans put the bean in the soil edgewise with the eye down.