FITCHES. 



(Common Vetch.} 

 LEGUMINOS.E. Vicia Sat tea. 



s small pea, though of a coarse and not very agreeable 

 character, is an article of food, and in the great famine 



f : of 1555, according to one writer, saved thousands from 

 starvation. In England it is used as green fodder for 

 cattle; and the plant is found wild in almost every 

 country, and admired in some places for its beauty. 



Dr. Lowth considers that the fitch of Isaiah was the com 

 mon dill, apparently from the impression that the mention of 

 the cummin in the same connection required that the word 

 rendered &quot;fitch&quot; should signify a similar plant. It will be seen, 

 however, that the treatment of the cummin, as described by 

 Isaiah, is different from that of the fitch referred to in the 

 same passage ; and the manner of threshing suggests that the 

 plant-seeds beaten out with the &quot; stick&quot; would be coarser than 

 those separated by a &quot; rod.&quot; This makes it probable that the 

 fitches of Isaiah were coarser than the cummin, and were the 

 same as those of Ezekiel iv. 9, about which there is little doubt 

 that they were vetches, and not rye, as some have supposed, 

 several circumstances, together with the plural form of the word 

 in the Hebrew, rendering it doubtful whether rye could have 

 been referred to at all. 



11 79 



