Cultivation of Arable Land.— Beans.

_ there has been any negleét in thefe proceffes, beans well managed by the hoe

being an excellent preparation for wheat crops*.

In the methods of planting in rows, at the diftances of fifteen or twenty-four, as well as on ridges at thirty inches, the horfe-hoe may be moft conveniently employed, but for narrower{paces the hand-hoe can only be made ufe of. The practice in Middlefex is, when the crops are about five or fix inches high, to conftantly hand-hoe the intervals, and clean the rows by weeding, and to re- peat the fame operations about the time of their coming into bloffom, in which the earth fhould be carefully brought up to the roots of the plants, which has much effect, by the quantity of nourifhment thus provided, in promoting the fetting as well as filling of the pods. It has alfo been remarked, that, where the ground is in a fituation to admit of the aétion of a fmall light plough, ora horfe-hoe, to earth up the rows, great benefit may be thus produced, but that on the clayey loams this is only capable of bemg performed for a little time after they have been well moiftened with rain f.

In the county of Kent it is frequently the cuftom to apply the roller and the harrow to the bean crops about the middle or latter end of March, by the firft of which the cloddy parts are broken down and reduced, while the latter im- mediately following renders the baked furface-mold fine and powdery, by which means new fupplies of nourifhment are provided, and the advancement of the young plants greatly promoted. At no diftant period after this the beans are edge-hoed, and then braked, the latter of which is a method of pra€tice chiefly confined to that diftri€t, and which is confidered by fome cultivators as much preferable to the application of the hoe to the whole furface of the{paces be- tween. the rows, not only as being performed at a much lefs expence, but on account of its being more effeétual in the removal of weeds, and providing more abundant fupplies of fuch fubftances as contribute to the nutrition of plants, by loofening and newly aerating the furface-mold of the foil, as well as throwing it up to the roots of the beans. It is cuftomary in many parts to re- peat this procefs every fortnight or three weeks, from the early part of May till the feafon at which the crop blooms}. And it is obferved, that the earthing up may be-accomplithed with facility by the above implement, merely by fixing a fmall piece of wood on the frig of it, the diameter of which regulates the height, of earthing up the ftems of the beans as they advance in growth|,

* Young’s Corrected Report of Lincolnfhire.+ Corrected Report of Middlefex,

+ Annals of Agriculture, vol. 1X# Synopfis of Hufbandry..