198 THE BEAN CROP. 



not sufficient to enable us to point to its native country. 

 It is usually stated as Persia. De Candolle is of opinion 

 that it is a native of the borders of the Caspian Sea. 

 This, however, has not been confirmed by any of the 

 recent Kussian naturalists and travellers in those regions, 

 neither has any wild plant been as yet found. 



Although, in some of the early Greek writers Homer, 

 for instance beans are spoken of as being known as 

 articles of food, it is in the pages of the later Roman 

 historians that we find the important place they then 

 occupied in their agriculture, and the care and attention 

 they received in their fields. Apart from their value 

 on the farm, superstition endowed them in those days 

 with supernatural qualities, and gave them an exclusive 

 value for certain ceremonies and special occasions. Ac- 

 cording to Pliny, cakes made of the meal of beans were 

 used as votive offerings in certain of the Pagan rites and 

 ceremonies. Although so used, the grand priests of the 

 Romans, termed " Flamines," carefully abstained from 

 them, under the belief that the souls of the departed re- 

 sided in them. From this superstition they were always 

 accounted proper to be used at funeral ceremonies. An- 

 other reason given for this abstinence from their use was 

 the supposition that letters and characters of an ominous 

 nature, indicating heaviness and signs of death, were 

 marked on the flowers. The Egyptian priests, however, 

 went further, and even denounced it as a crime to look 

 at beans, judging the very sight of them to be unclean. 

 A passage also occurs in Lucian, to the effect "that to 

 eat beans and to eat our father's head were equal crimes." 

 Phillips has collected a number of curious and interesting 

 facts relative to the bean: amongst others, that the 

 modern practice of " blackballing " any obnoxious candi- 

 date was derived from the ancients, who used white and 

 black beans in taking the votes of the people, and for the 



