The first planting of snaps or dwarf bush beans can be made when the first planting of peas and beets are sown, but will not do as well nor produce beans of as fine quality as those planted about two weeks later, when the weather has become warmer and more settled. These yield very abundantly, and a drill fifty feet long will produce as many as can be used in a large family. While planting in a drill, for the sake of convenience and quickness in planting, the seed should be dropped in hills about ten inches apart and five seeds to a hill. If the beans are kept picked closely, the plants will continue longer in bearing, and they may be had throughout the season if successive plantings are made, though the pole snaps are to be preferred through the summer and fall, for their greater bearing qualities and the ease of gathering them. In both the bush and pole snaps, care should be taken to secure varieties that are entirely stringless, as they are not only much easier to prepare for use, but are much more tender. The different “Wax” varieties are very fine, but the bush beans of this class have not done well in this locality for the last three seasons, the pods being covered with a species of black spot or rot that spoils fully two-thirds of them.[1] The pole beans should not be planted until the ground is thoroughly warmed in the spring, or until the thermometer stands over 60° all night. It is quite common to plant these with poles 8 to 9 feet in height. I think this is a mistake, as no ordinary picker can reach higher than about six feet to advantage, and as the vines grow to the tops of the poles before commencing to fruit, both beans and time are lost. The poles should be set in rows four and one-half feet apart and two and one-half to three feet apart in the rows. Two hundred poles of Limas will furnish an ample supply throughout the season, and will ripen a bushel of dried beans for winter use as well. Twenty-five poles will furnish an ample supply of snaps, though we allowed one row across the garden in the diagram given, the surplus being allowed to ripen for winter use. Where the saving of room is an object and the ground has been well manured, these pole snaps can be planted in the hills of corn, and allowed to use the stalks as poles; they will produce a good crop, but not nearly so many, nor are they as easy to pick as when grown on the poles. For this purpose they should be planted with some strong growing variety of corn, such as Stowell’s Evergreen or other late variety.