Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Garden, Vol. 52: An Illustrated Weekly Journal of Horticulture in All Its Branches; July, 1897-January, 1898
Smythe's hybrid Beans - I refer to these dropping the prefix French, for the use of which in relation to the dwarf section of Kidney Beans there seems to be no warrant. 'the term dwarf Beans conveys all needful information. The hybrids referred to are the product of cross ing the dwarf Ne Plus Ultra with the climbing Scarlet Bean, and the result so far has not been at all satisfactory. Many seedlings are but re productions oi the dwarf parent with shorter pods. Many others are dwarfs with scarlet owers, the pods being of an intermediate form of the dwarf type, yet rougher in esh. No one feature has been fixed: Generally the seeds are reddish, and of the ordinary dwarf size. The great defect of the strain - which is undoubtedly of genuine hybrid character - is that no best form has been fixed. When at Basing Park last autumn I saw considerable breadths of the strain growing and fruiting. I selected one plant having scarlet owers, carried in long racemes, yet of dwarf bushy habit, as the best. This was a great cropper, the pods long, green, handsome, and of eshy texture. -that was the best of all, and I strongly advised Mr. Smythe to make that one plant the starting point of the strain, hard roguing everything else that was not true to character. Of course, in putting a mixed hybrid strain into the market it was Open to anyone who grew plants to make a selection of the same nature for himself. Naturally hybrid products take a good deal of fixing, and, even with the greatest care in selecting, several years may elapse ere that fixing is complete. - a.d.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."