The variety requires the entire season for its full perfection. When planted early, it will blossom in nine weeks, produce young pods in eleven weeks, green beans in thirteen weeks, and ripen in a hundred and twenty days. If planted and grown under the influence of summer weather, the plants will blossom in seven weeks, yield young pods in nine weeks, green beans in twelve weeks, and ripen in a hundred days. Plantings for the green seeds may be made to the middle of June, and for the young pods to the first of July.
The ripe beans are pale cream-white, spotted with deep purplish-black (the cream-white gradually changing by age to cinnamon-brown), round-ovoid, four-tenths of an inch long, and about three-eighths of an inch in width and thickness. A quart contains nearly seventeen hundred seeds, and will plant two hundred hills.
The variety has been long cultivated both in Europe and this country. It is hardy and productive. The young pods are of fair quality; and the seeds, green or ripe, are excellent for table use, in whatever form prepared.
Yellow Cranberry.
Five to six feet high, with yellowish-green foliage and pale-purple flowers: the pods are five inches long, three-fourths of an inch broad, often sickle-shaped; pale-green at first; cream-yellow, shrivelled, and irregular in form, like those of the Red variety, at maturity; and contain five or six seeds.
It is a few days later than the White Cranberry, and nearly two weeks later than the Red. Planted at the commencement of the season, it will blossom in eight weeks, yield pods for the table in about ten weeks, pods for shelling in twelve or thirteen weeks, and ripen in a hundred and ten days. Early summer-plantings will blossom in seven weeks, produce pods for the table in less than nine weeks, and ripen in about a hundred days. When grown for the ripened crop, it should have the advantage of the entire season; but, when cultivated for its young pods, plantings may be made till the first of July.
Seeds yellow, with a narrow, dark line encircling the hilum: round-ovoid, half an inch long, and three-eighths of an inch in breadth and thickness: thirteen hundred and fifty are contained in a quart, and will plant a hundred and twenty-five hills.
The variety is hardy and prolific; of good quality as a string-bean, or for shelling in the green state. When ripe, the seeds are nearly equal to the White Marrow for baking, though the color is less agreeable.