APRIL. 57 



times of scarcity. Its properties are not, 

 however, so certainly known as that it can be 

 recommended as food. 



Happily for us, vre are not subject to those 

 occasional seasons of dearth which were for- 

 merly experienced in this country, when the 

 poor were compelled to seek vegetable food from 

 wild roots and seeds. An old WTiter, speaking 

 of the dearth which prevailed in England in 

 1555, says : "At this time plenty of "leas did 

 grow on the sea-shore, near Dunwich, m Suffolk, 

 never set or sown by human industry ; which, 

 being gathered in full ripeness, much abated 

 the high price of the market, and preserved 

 many hungry families from perishing." The 

 plant which thus appeared at so needful a season 

 was the sea-side pea, (Pisum marifimum,) which 

 is a native of our shores, but not usually very 

 common or abundant. It is a pretty wild pea, 

 sufficiently similar to the sweet pea of the gar- 

 den to remind us of that flower. There is a 

 tradition that the plant sprang up in conse- 

 quence of th wreck of a vessel near the coast, 

 on which the seeds were washed by the waves : 

 but this is scarcely probable, as the bitterness 

 of this pea renders it unlikely that it had been 

 of sufficient value for exportation ; and the sea- 

 side pea is so different from all other kinds, that 

 the flower could not have been the produce of 

 the seed of any otlier pea. Like the writer just 

 quoted, we must attribute its growth to the pro- 

 vidential interference of God, but cannot account 

 for the means employed for its production. 



