at the butt, I make shallow, slanting cuts downward, so as to raise the bark a little.  These slight raisings of the bark or wood serve as supports to the clambering vines.  After the poles are in the ground I make a broad, flat hill of loose soil and a little of the black powdery fertilizer.  I then allow the sun to warm and dry the hill a few days, and if the weather is fine and warm, I plant the seed about the fifteenth, merely pressing the eye of the bean downward one inch.  If planted lower than this depth, they usually decay.  If it is warm and early, the seed may be planted by the fifth of May.  After planting, examine the seed often.  If the beans are decaying instead of coming up, plant over again, and repeat this process until there are three or four strong plants within three or four inches of each pole.  Let the hills be five feet apart each way, hoe often, and do not tolerate a weed.  The Long White Lima and Dreer’s Improved Lima are the only sorts needed.

The Indians in their succotash taught us long ago to associate corn with beans, and they hit upon a dish not surpassed by modern invention.  This delicious vegetable is as easily raised as its “hail-fellow well met,” the bean.  We have only to plant it at the same time in hills from three to four feet apart, and cover the seed two inches deep.  I have used the powdery fertilizers and wood-ashes in the hill to great advantage, first mingling these ingredients well with the soil.  We make it a point to have sweet-corn for the table from July 1 until the stalks are killed by frost in October.  This is easily managed by planting different varieties, and continuing to plant till well into June.  Mr. Gregory writes:  “For a succession of corn for family use, to be planted at the same time, I would recommend Marblehead Early, Pratt’s, Crosley’s, Moore’s, Stowell’s Evergreen, and Egyptian Sweet.”  Mr. Harris names with praise the Minnesota as the best earliest, and Hickox Improved as an exceedingly large and late variety.  Mr. Henderson’s list is Henderson Sugar, Hickox Improved, Egyptian, and Stowell’s Evergreen.  Let me add Burr’s Mammoth and Squantum Sugar—­a variety in great favor with the Squantum Club, and used by them in their famous clam-bakes.

The cucumber, if grown in the home garden and used fresh, is not in league with the undertaker.  The seed may be planted early in May, and there are many ways of forcing and hastening the yield.  I have had cucumbers very early in an ordinary hotbed.  Outdoors, I make hills in warm soil the first of May, mixing a little of my favorite fertilizer with the soil.  After leaving the hill for a day or two to become warm in the sun, I sow the seed in a straight line for fifteen inches, so that the hoe can approach them closely.  The seed is covered an inch deep, and the soil patted down firmly.  It is possible that a cold storm or that insects may make partial planting over necessary; if so, this is done promptly.  I put twenty seeds in the hill, to insure against loss.