BEADS. 



BEAN, THE. 



26 



1851, there was found a number of beads at Donaghadee, in the 

 county of Down, Ireland ; 150 glass beads were found, of various colours, 

 with spiral ornaments in yellow enamel, with several others of amber. 

 They were of various sizes, and probably also formed a necklace. 

 From the bronze articles found with them there is little doubt that 

 they are Roman, though, as the Romans had no settlement in Ireland, 

 it is not easy to say how they came there. (' Archaeological Journal' 

 for 1856.) 



BEADS (Rosary) are made of horn, ebony, ivory, glass, boxwood, 

 and other materials, and are strung in chaplets used by the Roman 

 Catholics for the purpose of counting their prayers. The Rosary is a 

 series of prayers said to have been first instituted by St. Dominic about 

 the year 1200, in honour of the Virgin Mary, and as an invocation to 

 her for spiritual assistance. It consists of a repetition of the Ave 

 Maria and the Paternoster or Lord's Prayer, both in Latin. It is 

 divided into deeads of ten Ave Marias, each decad being preceded by 

 the Lord's Prayer, and terminating with the Gloria Patri. The full or 

 great rosary consists of fifteen decads, but the common rosary, which 

 is recited generally in the evening by pious Catholics, consists of only 

 five decads. At the end of the five decads they recite the Creed, or 

 Symbol of the apostles, and afterwards (in Italy at least) the Litany of 

 the Virgin, which is different from the Litany of the Liturgy. The 

 rosary is a daily family evening prayer ; the head of the family says 

 the first part of each Ave Maria, and the other members repeat in 

 chorus the remaining part. [AvE MARIA.] " The original rosary of 

 St. Dominic is a recitation of fifteen decads of Ave Maries, preceded 

 each by a Pater, each decad being devoted to the meditation of one of 

 the mysteries of the life of our Saviour. The first five mysteries are 

 those of the incarnation, nativity, &c. , and are styled joyful mysteries. 

 The next five are those of the passion and death, and are styled 

 sorrowful. The remaining five are those of the resurrection, ascension, 

 assumption of the Virgin, &c., and are termed glorious." (Touron, 

 ' Vie de St. Dominic ; ' ' Quindecim Mysteria Rosarii Beati Maria! 

 Virginis,' a R. Schiaminosso delin. atque incisa, Rome, 1609.) The 

 common chaplet is called Corona, " a crown," in honour of the Virgin. 



The beads are distinguished by their size and shape, those marking 

 the Lord's Prayer being larger than those for the Ave Marias. 

 Rosaries of very small glass beads are worn by pious Catholics round 

 their necks. The object of St. Dominic was probably, while doing 

 honour to the Virgin, to fix at the same time the attention of the 

 pious on the contemplation of the principal events of the Saviour's 

 life, by allowing a certain time, marked by the recitation of ten Ave 

 Marias, to the meditation upon each event or mystery. The name of 

 rosary is figurative : it means a chaplet of spiritual roses, divided into 

 three seta, white, red, and damask roses, corresponding to the joyful, 

 sorrowful, and glorious mysteries. Such are the allegory and its 

 explanation. (' The Rosarie of our Ladie otherwise called our Ladie's 

 Psalter,' Antwerp, 1600.) 



The Turks and other eastern nations have also ehaplets of beads 

 made of amber or other materials, which they turn through then- 

 fingers while sitting in a listless mood, but not, as it seems, for any 

 purpose of prayer. The Turkish chaplet is called " Comboloio." The 

 Chinese rosary consists of 108 beads of stones and coral, sometimes as 

 large as pigeons' eggs, and is a part of the ceremonial dress, worn as a 

 necklace and descending to the waist with certain beads introduced to 

 mark the rank of the wearer. A smaller rosary of eighteen beads is 

 used by the bonzes and the laity. 



BEAMS. [MATERIALS, STRENGTH OF.] 



BEAN, THE. Of this leguminous plant many varieties, classed 

 however under only one species botanically, are extensively cultivated 

 in the garden and in the field. It is the Faint vulijarig or Vieia Faba, 

 which is our common garden and field bean. The French bean, haricot, 

 or kidney-bean is an altogether different plant Phmeolua vulijaris. 

 We here consider them only from the agricultural point of view. 



The common bean bears a pod containing several oblong rounded 

 seeds, which are used in the soft young state for the table, and in the 

 hard dry state for domestic animals chiefly, either whole or ground 

 into meal. In some places bean-meal is mixed with other meal in 

 making coarse bread ; or the beans are boiled into a mess with fat 

 meat, in which state they are very palatable and nutritious. The bean 

 came originally from the east, and was cultivated in Egypt and Barbary 

 in the earliest ages of which we have any records. It spread thence 

 into Slain and Portugal, from whence some of the best varieties have 

 been introduced into this country. The most common varieties of the 

 garden l.nn are the Windsor, the Toker, the long-pod, and the Mazagan, 

 all productive and well-tasted. In the field the tick bean, the common 

 Itean, the winter bean, and the small Dutch, or Heligoland bean, 

 are preferred, being hardy as well as productive. The long-pod is 

 occasionally sown in the field, the Mazagan and broad Windsor bean 



' !!!. 



There is no plant in which the transformation of the cotyledons into 

 seed leaves is more readily traced than in the bean. The Windsor 

 bean, in particular, from the size of its lobes and distinctness of its 

 vessels, \A admirably adapted for observation, the parts being readily 

 di.-.tln^Mi.-.hcd by the naked eye. If a bean is planted in moist earth or 

 soaked in water, in a moderate temperature, the cotyledons will swell 

 and soon burst the skin which envelops them, separating into two 

 lobes, which open like the shells of an oyster. In the part which forms 



the joint an oblong body will appear, which is the embryo stem of the 

 plant. This increases rapidly in the earth, and pushes a root down- 

 wards, and a stem upwards, which latter carries the lobes with it till 

 they rise above the ground, when they expand, and are transformed 

 into seed leaves. It is curious to observe the force of vegetation in the 

 young bean when it is, as it were, imprisoned in a strong soil hardened 

 at the surface, as may be seen when a path crosses a field of beaiis 

 newly planted ; the cotyledons, under these circumstances, are drawn 

 into the crevices made by the young stem, where they often remain 

 held fast till the first shower releases them. The change in the cotyle- 

 dons deserves particular attention. As soon as the seed swells by 

 imbibing moisture, the oxygen, which is always present in the atmos- 

 phere and in water, acts upon the farinaceous substance in the seed, 

 and takes a portion of carbon from it producing carbonic acid, which is 

 absorbed by the surrounding plants, or flies off in the state Of gas : by 

 this loss the remaining substance becomes a mild fluid emulsion, 

 analogous to the milk of animals, which, being taken up by the minute 

 vessels of the radicle, nourishes and increases them. It is this alone 

 which produces the first growth ; the earth is the mere cradle to 

 protect the young plant and to keep it moist, by preventing the too 

 rapid evaporation which the heat and light of the sun would otherwise 

 produce : when the ground is entirely deprived of moisture, vegetation 

 necessarily ceases. The cotyledons are the reservoirs of nature to 

 supply proper food for the plant in its infant state. In proportion as 

 the farina hi the lobes is gradually exhausted new vessels appear 

 through the substance of the lobes, conveying the newly formed juice 

 from every part of them into the root and stem, and, at last, the coty- 

 ledons are transformed into seed leaves. The fibres of the roots are by 

 this time completely formed, and have acquired the power of absorbing 

 nourishment from the soil. [ROOT.] The plant may now be said to 

 be weaned. The stem is then considerably advanced in growth, 

 having put forth new leaves of a different form from the seed leaves : 

 these last, having now performed then- part, wither and soon fall off ; 

 if they are removed before this period, the plant, having lost its nurse, 

 languishes and dies. 



The bean at this stage of its growth requires particular attention. 

 If the soil is rich and well prepared, it will grow rapidly and luxu- 

 riantly, and be soon out of reach of insects or weeds, and capable of 

 resisting or of turning to account the varying influences of the atmos- 

 phere ; but if the soil is poor and parched, and the supply of nutritive 

 juices is scanty, the plant will soon show weakness and disease, and the 

 only way to prevent a total failure of the crop, is to supply by art the 

 deficiency of nature. In very poor soils manure may be applied in a 

 liquid state, or as a top-dressing : in those which are not exhausted, 

 tillage alone will enable the roots to spread, and give them a wider 

 range to seek their food in. The weeds being destroyed, the whole 

 powers of the soil are reserved for the crop ; and the air charged with 

 fertilising vapours being allowed to penetrate the surface, and being 

 retained in the interstices of the soil, greatly assists in invigorating the 

 vegetation. These are the principles on which is founded the whole 

 culture of leguminous plants, whether in the garden or the field. 

 Where labour is not spared and the produce is valuable, and where 

 vegetables are raised as a kind of luxury for the tables of the rich, the 

 greatest attention is paid to the cultivation of beans, so as to have them 

 early and in regular succession during the whole summer. They are 

 even occasionally raised by artificial heat. In general they are sown or 

 planted at various times, from the beginning of winter to the middle of 

 summer, but they must be protected from frost in the first case, and 

 from too great heat and drought in the latter. They are set in rows 

 with wide intervals, which are kept dug and clean, and in which lesser 

 vegetables are advancing in growth, to be sheltered by the beans, and 

 to succeedj them when removed. In order to strengthen the pods 

 already formed, as soon as those which are near the bottom of the 

 stem are filled, the tops of the plants are cut off, and the beans are 

 gathered when the seed has acquired sufficient consistency to be taken 

 from the shells, before they have acquired any farinaceous qualities. 

 One crop is made to succeed another by regulating the times of sowing ; 

 and thus beans are gathered for the table from May to November, or 

 till the frosty nights check the growth of the plant. The cultivation of 

 the field bean is only as perfect an imitation of the garden culture as 

 circumstances will permit. As only one crop is required, and that in 

 a perfectly ripe state, when the seeds are fully formed and hard, they 

 are sown at one particular season, so as to avoid the danger from frosts 

 and ungenial weather in spring, and at the same time to have the crop 

 ripe in good time to be harvested before the cold and wet season sets 

 in. The usual mode is to drill them by a machine, at the distance of 

 from twenty to thirty inches, according to the richness of the soil, or to 

 dibble them by hand, either singly or by putting two or three beans in 

 each hole, increasing the distance of the holes from six to twelve 

 inches. Beans are tolerably hardy, aud will bear moderate dry frosts ; 

 but they suffer much from alternate frosts and thaws, which in this 

 climate are so common in February. The end of February, or the 

 beginning of March, is therefore generally preferred for bean-sowing. 

 When the season is remarkably mild, as was the case in 1834, early 

 sowing is a great advantage. The writer of this article planted a field 

 of beans on the 1st of January, 1834, in a soil duly prepared ; they 

 were reaped in August, and produced a very good crop : his neighbours, 

 who planted their beans in March, had not half the quantity on equally 



