POLE OR RUNNING BEANS.
As a class, these are less hardy than the Dwarfs, and are not usually planted so early in the season. The common practice is to plant in hills three feet or three and a half apart; though the lower-growing sorts are sometimes planted in drills fourteen or fifteen inches apart, and bushed in the manner of the taller descriptions of pease.
If planted in hills, they should be slightly raised, and the stake, or pole, set before the planting of the seeds. The maturity of some of the later sorts will be somewhat facilitated by cutting or nipping off the leading runners when they have attained a height of four or five feet.
Case-Knife.
This variety, common to almost every garden, is readily distinguished by its strong and tall habit of growth, and its broad, deep-green, blistered leaves. The flowers are white. The pods are remarkably large; often measuring nine or ten inches in length, and nearly an inch in width. They are of a green color till near maturity, when they change to yellowish-green, and, when fully ripe, to cream-white. A well-formed pod contains eight or nine seeds.
Early plantings will blossom in seven or eight weeks, yield pods for stringing in about ten weeks, green beans in twelve or thirteen weeks, and ripen in a hundred and five days. Later plantings, with the exclusive advantage of summer weather, will supply string-beans in seven weeks, pods for shelling in eight or nine weeks, and ripen in ninety-six days. Plantings for the green beans may be made till nearly the middle of July; and, for the young pods, to the 25th of the month.
The ripe seeds are clear white, kidney-shaped, irregularly flattened or compressed, often diagonally shortened at one or both of the ends, three-fourths of an inch long, and three-eighths of an inch deep. A quart contains about fifteen hundred seeds, and will plant a hundred and seventy-five hills.
It is one of the most prolific of the running varieties. As a shelled-bean, it is of excellent quality in its green state; and, when ripe, farinaceous, and well flavored in whatever form prepared. The large pods, if plucked early, are succulent and tender, but coarser in texture than those of many other sorts, and not so well flavored.
The Case-knife, in its habit and general appearance, much resembles the Sabre, or Cimeter, of the French; and perhaps is but a sub-variety. Plants, however, from imported Sabre-beans, were shorter, not so stocky, a little earlier, and the pods, generally, less perfectly formed.
Corn-Bean.