Taking the Crop.—The pods should be gathered for use when the seeds are comparatively young, or when they are of the size of a marrowfat-pea. As a general rule, all vegetables are most tender and delicate when young; and to few esculents does this truth apply with greater force than to the class of plants to which the English Bean belongs.
Use.—The seeds are used in their green state, cooked and served in the same manner as shelled kidney-beans. The young pods are sometimes, though rarely, used as string-beans.
Varieties.—
Dutch Long Pod.
Plant from four to five feet high, dividing into two or three branches; flowers white; pods horizontal, or slightly pendulous, six or seven inches long, about an inch in width, three-fourths of an inch thick, and containing five or six large white or yellowish-white seeds.
Not early, but prolific, and of good quality.
Dwarf Fan, or Cluster.
Early Dwarf. Bog-bean.
A remarkably dwarfish, early variety, much employed in forcing. Stem about a foot high, separating near the ground into two or three branches; flowers white; the pods, which are produced in clusters near the top of the plant, are almost cylindrical, three inches long, three-fourths of an inch thick, and contain three or four small, oblong, yellow seeds.
It is one of the smallest and earliest of the English Beans, and yields abundantly.