PROPERTIES OF THE PEA. 155 



For the best pea-soup take a knuckle of veal and boil f of an hour; 

 boil 3 pints of peas till soft; strain, mash and rub them through a 

 sieve. Mix the pulp with the water the veal was boiled in ; put the 

 whole in a stew-pan with good lettuce, some powdered mint, pepper, 

 salt, &c., and stew moderately till the lettuce is well done ; then serve 

 them up with thin toasted bread and a little ginger. Of the sugar 

 pea is made a favorite dish Take the young pea in the pod, stripping 

 off the outside edges only; put them in a stew pan with good gravy, 

 thickened with flour and butter, a little mace, ginger and nutmeg; 

 stew gently till the pods are quite tender, then serve up as a side dish. 

 These two dishes are superior to any other of this vegetable. 



New varieties of the pea are frequently noticed, but few become 

 popular. The garden and field pea are different. The flour of the 

 latter is often mixed with that of wheat by bakers. Alone it is 

 heavy and unwholesome, but with three parts of rye flour, they make 

 a palatable and nourishing bread. Dried and split in a mill, peas are 

 much used in soups ; and, when burnt like coffee, they are considera- 

 bly used as a substitute. Much of that sold as ground coffee is ground 

 peas. By raising in hot beds and transplanting, peas are had the 1st 

 of May, and by raising and maturing in pits they are had in April; 

 but the pea does not force well. Stiff or sandy loam land, that has 

 been limed or marled, always produces the best peas, whatever the 

 variety may be. The straw of the pea, cut and dried, is as nourishing 

 as hay and an excellent fodder for sheep. Pea flour is as 3 to 2 of 

 the bulk in srain, in nourishment, and when husked and split, as 4 to 

 20. The flour affords in a 1000 parts 574 or 57 } per cent of nu- 

 tritive or soluble matter, of which 501 is mucilage, or vegeto-animal 

 matter, 22 sugar, 35 gluten and 16 insoluble extract. On open ground 

 the pea is sown from Jan. to the middle of July. . 



The pea is indigenous to the south of Europe, and was well known 

 to the Romans, who probably introduced it into England. Of the many 

 varieties the 2, P. sativum, or garden pea, and P. arvense, or field pea, 

 are generally cultivated. It is sometimes cultivated with the bean, 

 for, since the use of drill husbandry, the bean has been much more 

 cultivated than formerly. It attaches itself to the bean so as to ad- 

 mit of being hoed and exposes its roots to the air, by which its growth 

 is promoted. 



The pea is greatly used as sea provision, and also in hospitals and 

 workhouses. In Great Britain more than half a million of people live 

 on peas and beans. In addition to her product, which must be very 

 great, there were imported in 1831-476,480 bushels of peas, and 187,- 

 104 bushels of beans, the greater part of which came from the north 

 of Europe, mostly from Russia, Germany, and Denmark. And the 

 exports from Calcutta were over 1,300 tons. The pea is much used 

 in India as the most light and nutritive article of food in travelling, and 



