The chief disease from which beans suffer is anthracnose, which even the beginner may recognize when it has reached the stage where sunken brown spots appear on the pods; and when these spots have a tiny pink centre, you have seen the spore at work. The best known means of fighting it, is to select clean healthy seed, carefully hand-picked; go over the field as soon as the plants come up and weed out the affected ones; spray thoroughly with Bordeaux mixture[8] to which has been added resin soap. The compound should be as follows: Bordeaux mixture:—1½ pounds vitriol, 1 pound lime, 12 to 15 gallons of water. Resin soap:—½ pound resin, ¼ pound crystallized salsoda, 1 pint water (boil until clear brown solution is secured, then add to Bordeaux mixture). Apply first when the third leaf of the seedlings is opening, and repeat at intervals of ten to twelve days or after rain has washed the mixture off. [Illustration: THE RENT PAYER.] FOOTNOTES: [8] NOTE.—Unless the under surfaces of the leaves as well as the upper surfaces be kept coated with the spray, Bordeaux will be of little avail. For the commercial grower of dry beans, spraying is not advised.—Samuel Fraser. CHAPTER XX. SOLANACEOUS CROPS. This is a big word, but it means only that these plants belong to the nightshade family. This division takes in tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and husk tomatoes. These require all, or nearly all, the season to mature, and they keep on making growth, particularly in the North, until killed by frost. They are all seed-bed crops requiring a great deal of quick-acting fertilizer, especially when they are young, and to secure a heavy crop you must give them an early start. They are really of the same family as the potato, yet they are not grouped with that crop, because the parts eaten are the fruits which grow on their stems and branches, rather than the thickened stem or “tuber.” They are hot-season plants and are usually grown in hills. TOMATOES. In almost all parts of the United States the tomato is easily grown; yet it requires a long, warm season, and soil in excellent tilth for best results. The seed is sown in a seed- or hot-bed, and the plants are allowed to grow from four to eight weeks before transplanting to the garden, although they may be transplanted once or twice in the seed-bed to secure free and stocky growth. For the small home garden the plants are usually handled in pots, but for commercial purposes they are planted in small flats not more than 12 inches square, holding about two inches of soil. The earlier they are started the better, because they are less likely to suffer from fruit-rot and frost if they fruit early.