PLANTS WHOSE SEEDS WE EAT 95 



muscle-making food. They also contain oil, 

 which is a heat-producing food, suited for people 

 who work outdoors in cold weather. 



We are beginning to know the strange Soy, or 

 Soja, bean frdm Japan and China, a native of 

 these countries, and cultivated there and in India 

 for centuries unnumbered, as a food for man. It 

 is more like a pea than a bean; the seed and the 

 whole plant are rich in nitrogen. They are used 

 for stock food, and plowed under to enrich the 

 soil. Cowpeas are very like Soy beans, and put 

 to the same uses. 



In Mexico and farther south the little dark beans, 

 called frijoles, are a common food of the people, 

 as the horse beans are in the warm countries of 

 Europe. 



PEAS 



Fully as ancient as the bean, as human food, is 

 the pea, records of whose cultivation are found 

 in the lake dwellings of Switzerland and Savoy, 

 and in the early classic writings. No mention of 

 peas is made in the records of early times in 

 India or Egypt. So the fact that wild peas still 

 flourish in Mediterranean countries is taken by 

 botanists to mean that this region is the ancestral 

 home from which one of the most valuable garden 



