Book VI. 



THE TARE. 



841 



three and a half to four quarters per acre. In Kent, A. Young thinks, they probably 

 exceed four quarters; but in Suffolk, he should not estimate them at more than three'; 

 yet five or six are not uncommon. 



5250. The produce in haulm, in moist seasons, is very bulky. 



5251. In the application of beam, the grain in Scotland is sometimes made into meal, 

 the finer for bread, and the coarser for swine; but beans are for the most part applied to 

 the purpose of feeding horses, hogs, and other domestic animals. In the county of 

 Middlesex, all are given to horses, except what are preserved for seed, and such as are 

 podded while green, and sent to the London markets. When pigs are fed with beans, 

 it is observed that the meat becomes so hard as to make very ordinary pork, but good 

 bacon. It is also supposed that the mealmen grind many horse-beans among wheat to 

 be manufactured into bread. 



5252. The flour of beans is more nutritive than that of oats, as it appears in the fattening of hogs ; 

 whence, according to the respective prices of these two articles, Dr. Darwin suspects that peas and beans 

 generally supply a cheaper provender for horses than oats, as well as for other domestic animals. But as 

 the flour of peas and beans is more oily, he believes, than that of oats, it may in general be somewhat 

 more difficult of digestion ; hence, when a horse has taken a stomachful of peas and beans alone, he may 

 be less active for an hour or two, as his strength will be more employed in the digestion of them than 

 when he has taken a stomachful of oats. A German physician gave to two dogs, which had been kept a 

 day fasting, a large quantity of flesh food ; and then taking one of them into the fields, hunted him with 

 great activity for three or four hours, and left the other by the fire. An emetic was then given to each of 

 them ; and the food of the sleeping dog was found perfectly digested, whilst that of the hunted one had 

 undergone but little alteration. Hence it may, he says, be found advisable to mix bran of wheat with 

 the peas and beans, a food of less nutriment, but of easier digestion ; or to let the horses eat before or 

 after them the coarse tussocks of sour grass, which remain in moist pastures in the winter ; or, lastly, to 

 mix finely cut straw with them. It is observed in the fifth volume of The Bath Papers, that it has been 

 found by repeated experience, that beans are a much more hearty and profitable food for horses than 

 oats. Being out of old oats the two last springs, the writer substituted horse-beans in their stead. In the 

 room of a sack of oats with chaff, he ordered them a bushel of beans with chaff, to serve the same time. 

 It very soon appeared the beans were superior to the oats, from the life, spirit, and sleekness of the horses. 



5253. Bean straw, when mixed with peas, Brown considers as affording almost as much nourishment 

 when properly harvested as is gained from hay of ordinary quality ; when it is well got the horses are 

 fonder of it than of pea straw. It should either be given "when newly threshed, or else stacked up and 

 compressed by treading or coverings, as the air is found materially to affect both its flavour and nutritive 

 quality. 



5254. The produce of beans in meal is, like that of peas, more in proportion to the 

 grain than in any of the cereal grasses. A bushel of beans is supposed to yield fourteen 

 pounds more of flour than a bushel of oats, and a bushel of peas eighteen pounds more, 

 or, according to some, twenty pounds. A thousand parts of bean flour were found, by 

 Sir H. Davy, to yield 570 parts of nutritive matter, of which 426 were mucilage or 

 starch, 103 gluten, and 41 extract, or matter rendered insoluble during the process. 



5255. The diseases of beans are, the rust, mildew, black fly or A'phides, and in conse- 

 quence the honey dews. 



5256. A'phides, when they live on beans, are of a dirty bluish-black colour, similar to those on the elder 

 and cherry. The larva? of the Coccinella septempunct'ita, as well as the perfect insects, devour the 

 A^phis. Several of the small summer birds, viz. largest willow-wren, middle, and smallest wren, white, 

 throat, lesser white-throat, black-cap, and Dartford warbler, also live on them. The A'phides of beans are 

 brought on by very dry weather: they are most prevalent on the summits of the plants; and some have 

 attempted to mitigate the evil by cutting off the tops. In general, however, the disease is without remedy, 

 either preventive or positive. In extreme cases they destroy the leaves, stalks, and fruit; and when 

 this is foreseen, the best thing the farmer can do is to mow the crop or plough it down, and prepare the 

 land for wheat or otherwise, according to the rotation. 



Sect. III. The Tare. — Yicia sat}va L. ; Diadelphia Decandria L., and Leguminosa? J. 



Vexce commun de printemps et dliiver, Fr. ; Wkke, Ger. ; Loglio, Ital. ; and Arveja, Sp. 



5257. The tare, vetch, orftch ( Ficia sativa, fig. 742.), has been cultivated for its stem 



742 and leaves from time immemorial. It is considered as a 



r -<3C^ ^ (P ■%) native plant, and is found wild also in China and Japan. 



<^ <£& , W/fet£ /0t\ Ray, in 1686, informs us, that the common tare or vetch 



~/^jtl 



^j^f^^lll? iL. w as then sown almost all over Europe ; that it was chiefly 



Ji "f». used in England, mixed with peas and oats, to feed horses : 

 but that it was sometimes sown separately for soiling 

 cattle, and was reputed to cause milch cows to yield much 

 milk. The tare, Brown observes, is of hardy growth, and, 

 when sown upon rich land, will return a large supply of 

 green fodder for the consumption of horses, or for fattening 

 cattle. 



5258. The varieties of tares are chiefly two, the winter 

 and spring tare ; both have local names, as gore vetch, 

 rath ripe vetch, &c. Some consider them as distinct species, 

 but this is doubtful. 



5259. As the result nf an experiment tried for two years at Bury, in 

 Suffolk, Professor Martvn observes, that there appears a material 

 difference in the constitution, if we may so call it, of the two tares in 

 question. Not to say anv thing of a trifling difference in the colour 

 and size of their seeds, the only visible mark of distinction seems to be 

 a disparity in the first leaves ot the upright stalks, which in the spring 



