820 MEETING OF THE RRITISH ASSOCIATION. 
vated immemorially for food, at least in every part of the Old World. 
They belong to such genera as Vicia, Faba, Pisum, Ervum, Lathyrus, 
Orobus, Cicer, Phaseolus, Dolichos. In our narrow vocabulary they are 
all comprehended under the vernacular terms of peas, beans, vetches, 
lentils, ete. In those parts of Asia to which the principal cereal is 
rice, which contains but a small amount of gluten or nitrogenous 
matter, and where little animal matter is consumed, legumes are largely 
used as food to make up for the deficiency. Several of the cultivated 
legumes can be traced to their wild originals in Europe, while other 
sorts are traced to Africa, Asia, and to America. The only parts of 
the world that produce no native legumes fit for cultivation were Aus- 
tralia and New Zealand, where they were equally absent as the cereals. 
This arose from no inaptitude of the soil and climate, for they now 
flourish in these Austral regions, of every useful species. 
The principal plants cultivated and yielding a farina, as substitutes 
for the bread of the cereals, are the common Potato or tuber-yielding 
Solanum, the Yam or ‘Dioscorea, the Sweet Potato or tuber-yielding 
Convolvulus, the Sago-palm, the Breadfruit, and the Banana. There 
are other plants, sueh as those yielding arrowroot and tapioca, but of 
far less importance. 
The common Potato (Solanum tuberosum) is an undoubted native of 
America, and there of a temperate climate. It is still found wild on | 
the western slopes of the Andes, the tubers being no bigger than fil- 
berts. Even the rude red-man was found to have cultivated the Potato 
before the arrival of Europeans. It was brought from America direct 
to Ireland, and there first cultivated in 1586, or in about eighty years 
after the discovery of the New World. It is stated to have been still 
earlier introduced into Spain and Portugal. From Ireland it found its 
way to the Low Countries and to Germany, and from Spain it reached 
Italy and France. It is an object of cultivation in Asiatic countries 
only where Europeans have colonized or settled, and there chiefly for 
their consumption, and only since the beginning of the present cen- 
tury. It is successfully cultivated in Australia and New Zealand, 
which produced no eseulent farinaceous root at all, not even the Yam, 
the Taro, or the Manioc. 
e Yam (Dioscorea) is a native of tropical and subtropical climates. 
The genus to which it belongs is considered to consist of several dis- 
tinct species, natives of both Asia and America, and in many places it 
