T630 The Cornell Reading Courses 



came so far and cost so dear." It is said that before 1600 a. d. beans were 

 cultivated on this continent as far north as the St. Lawrence River. It 

 is evident that both beans and peas have been cultivated by the Indians 

 of North and South America at least since the time of the early voyages 

 of the white men to this continent. Of local interest is the fact .that in 

 the United States beans were first grown commercially in Orleans County, 

 New York, in 1839. 



The cowpea and the soy bean have only within recent years come into 

 common use in this country. As yet they are being planted chiefly for 

 their value as a fertilizer and a forage crop, although the people of the 

 Southern States arc beginning to realize the value of these two legumes as 

 a human food. The cowpea was introduced into this country from the 

 West Indies about two hundred years ago, and there is a record of its 

 having been planted on George Washington's farm about 1797. It was 

 long ago used in China, and it was known in Asia Minor and Arabia as 

 early as the beginning of the Christian era. The cowpea is said to be the 

 chief leguminous crop of the Southern States. 



The first reference to the soy bean in American literature was in 1829; 

 it had been grown in the botanical garden at Cambridge, Massachusetts, 

 and was referred to as "a luxury, affording the well-known sauce, soy, 

 which at this time is only prepared in China and Japan." About twenty- 

 five years later, seed of the soy bean, or Japan pea as it was then called, 

 was brought from Japan to California, and thence to Illinois and Ohio. 

 Within the last twenty-five years, it has come to be a crop of great economic 

 importance in the United States. 



The lentil was probably one of the first plants to be brought under cul- 

 tivation. It is thought that the "red pottage" of Esau may have been 

 made from the reddish Egyptian lentil. The plant is a native of the 

 Mediterranean region. It is cultivated in Egypt and the East, and in 

 southern Europe, although not so extensively there as the pea and the bean. 

 On this continent, a small variety is grown in Mexico and the southwestern 

 section of the United States, but practically all the lentils on the market 

 are imported. With the increase of foreign population in tlie United 

 States, the use of lentils is steadily increasing. 



The peanut, popularly classed with the nuts, is thought to be a native 

 of tropical America. It has long been grown in Africa, the East Indies, 

 China, and Japan. It \s said that in the seventeenth century it had be- 

 come so important an article of food in Africa that the slave dealers loaded 

 their vessels with it as food for their captives. Since the Civil War, the 

 peanut has become important in the Southern States as a human food, a 

 forage crop, and a fertilizer. 



