Mottled Prolific.
Plant branching, healthy, and vigorous, six feet or more in height; flowers purple; the pods are four inches and a half long, usually produced in pairs, green at first, washed with purple when more advanced, light-brown at maturity, and contain six seeds.
It is a late variety. Plantings made during the first of the season will not produce pods for use until the last of July, or beginning of August; but, if these are plucked as they become of suitable size, the plants will continue in bearing until destroyed by frost.
The ripe beans are drab, thickly and minutely spotted with black, and also distinctly marked with regular lines of the same color. They are of an oblong form, flattened, often squarely or diagonally shortened at the ends, nearly half an inch in length, and three-tenths of an inch in width. A quart contains thirty-one hundred seeds, and will plant about three hundred hills.
As a shelled-bean, in its green or ripened state, the variety has little merit. Its recommendations are its fine, tender pods, its remarkable productiveness, and its uniformly healthy habit.
Prédhomme. Vil.
Introduced from France. Plant four or five feet high, with broad, deep-green, blistered foliage and white flowers; the pods are nearly cylindrical, three inches long, green while young, cream-white when ripe, and contain from six to eight seeds, set very closely together.
The ripe beans are dull-white, veined, oblong, often shortened at the ends, a third of an inch long, and nearly a fourth of an inch in width and thickness. A quart contains about thirty-five hundred seeds, and will plant three hundred and fifty hills.
Early plantings will blossom in eight weeks, afford pods for the table in about ten weeks, and ripen in a hundred and eight days. It may be planted for its green pods to the first of July.
It is of little value as a shelled-bean in its green state. When ripe, it is of good quality, and, as a string-bean, one of the best; the pods being very brittle, succulent, and fine flavored. They remain long upon the plants without becoming tough and hard; and are tender, and good for use, until almost ripe. On account of their thin and delicate character, the seeds, in unfavorable seasons, are often stained and otherwise injured by dampness at the time of ripening.