The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-05-15 00:00:00

KIDNEY BEANS IN SMALL GARDENS.

(From The Gardener's Magazine.)

There is no room for dispute as to the propriety of
growing kidney beans in small gardens. In the whole
of the list of useful vegetables, there is nothing so
suitable or so profitable to be found; nothing so easy
to manage, nothing that so thoroughly suits all tastes
and all occasions. If room could be found for only one
vegetable in a garden, the choice should certainly fall
upon some kind of kidney bean, as affording a maxi-
mum of profit with a minimum of risk, and in some
cases serving for ornament as well as use.
It is well for the owner of a small garden to bear in
mind that, although kidney beams will grow in any
good soil, they grow all the better if the ground is
deeply dug and well manured. The truth must be
told, that in small gardens kidney beans are generally
very badly managed. They are put on poor ground,
the rows too close together, and the plants too thick in
the row; and yet .with such bad management they
pay—but they pay much better when treated with a
little skill. •
Let the ground be well dug, and unless it is in good
heart dig in a liberal dressing of fat manure. For this,
as for every other crop, the laud ought to be made
ready some time before it is wanted, but between what.
." ought" to be done and what "can" be done there is
often a great gulf fixed. The proper soil for the whole
tribe of kidney beans is a light but substantial loam of
considerable depth. In hot, dry, shallow soils the
plant may be attacked by red-spider, and on cold
lumpy clay a wet season will pretty well kill it. The
small gardener can do what the large gardener may
find impossible: he can give water to the rows of
kidney beans, and thus help them amazingly, if the
soil is thin and poor, or the summer unusually dry.
As to gathering the crop, the most profitable way is
to gather all, taking the beans as fast as they acquire
a proper size, and not allowing one to become stringy.
Even if you have to give away a:lot, it is best to
gather all you ean get as fast as they come. But you
want to save a bit of seed. Very well; then leave a
row or a part of a row untouched. If you gather from
plants that you propose to take seed fro, you spoil
the quality of the seed. It may require a good deal of
hammering to make people this, and, as I have no
time for the hammering, I shall leave the simple
statement to its fate. If you want seed, trust to plants
that have not been gathered from at all, and as to the
rest, gather every pod you can get, and if you are over-
burdened let somebody share your troubb

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It is shown in the return of the Registrar General
that during last week 5,577 births and 3,531 deaths were re-
gistered in London and- twenty other large towns of the
United Kingdom. The natural increase of population was
2,046. The mortality from all causes was at the average
rate of 24 deaths annually in every 1,000 persons living. In
London 2,327 births and 1,459 deaths were registered, .the
former having been 77 below, and the latter 21 above, the
average numbers. Only one person died from small-pox
throughout the metropolis.
The accounts of the Post-Oilice Savings Banks just
presented to Parliament show that on the let o January,
1874, there was a balance due to depositors of £21,167,749
ifs 2d. During the year 1874 cash was received from de-
positors to the amount of £8,431,256 3s. 2d. The interest
due on these sums up to 31st of December, 1874, was
£321,5r,t) us. 11d., making a total of £30,033,f65 lie. 34.
The repayments during 1874, in cash paid. and warrants
was L 6,876,095. 12.5., ,Id., and the
depositors, inclusive of interest on the 31st
• ibsasluacud balance
ebduute notto
of December. inta 42413708 184.10 d.