BEAN. There are two distinct kinds of beans cultivated; the one is our common gar den or field bean: the other is the French bean, haricot, or kidney-bean.
The common bean, of which there are seve ral varieties, bears a pod containing several oblong rounded seeds, which are used in the soft young state for the table, and in the hard dry state for domestic animals chiefly, either whole or ground into mccl. The Windsor bean and the horse bean are the two chief varieties. The mode of sowing is to drill them by a machine, at the distance of from twenty to thirty inches, according to the richness of the soil ; or to dibble them by hand. The soil best adapted for beans is a rich strong loam, such as produces good wheat. In such a soil the produce is some times fifty or sixty bushels per acre, but an average crop, on moderate land, is about half that quantity. The wheat which follows beans is generally good and heavy, and seldom runs to straw. In cold wet soils beans require great care to ensure good crops. Although the nutritious matter in a good crop of beans is great, and almost equal to that obtained from a crop of wheat, it exhausts the soil much less ; and thus there is perhaps no crop bearing seed which gives so great a return with so small an expenditure of the nutritive juices of the soil.
The principal use of beans is to feed horses, for which purpose they are admirably adapted, and far more nourishing than oats. They should be bruised or Split in a mill, and given to horses mixed with hay and straw cut into chaff. Great quantities of beans are con sumed in fatting hogs, to which they are given whole at first, and afterwards ground into meal. Bacon hogs may be fatted almost entirely on beans and bean-meal. Bean-meal given to oxen soon makes them fat. All but the verybest wheaten flour is adulterated with bean -meal.
The French bean, kidney bean, or haricot bean, is chiefly cultivated for its tender and succulent pod, being one of the most esteemed vegetables for the table. The dried seeds are also boiled after being soaked in water for some time, and are thus used very extensively by the French.
The imports of beans for three years were ] 816 .. 255,047 Qrs.
1817 .. 443,6751 of be 1848 .. 490,353 beans.