CLASSIFICATION OF THE BEAN". 201 



passed into France, and then across the Channel to our 

 shores. More probably, however, it was introduced directly 

 by the Romans at an earlier period, whose practice it was 

 to follow up the stride of their victorious legions through 

 a conquered country, by the introduction of those arts and 

 appliances which had conduced to their own prosperity and 

 comfort at home a noble policy, worthy of later civiliza- 

 tion, which, however, we are only yet but imperfectly ac- 

 quainted with. Our early writers mostly speak of beans 

 (pulse) as entering into the agriculture of their respective 

 periods ; but it is only of late years that their full value 

 has been recognized either agriculturally as a rotation crop 

 on the farm, or chemically as an article of food for our- 

 selves and our cattle. 



The bean belongs to the natural order LEGUMINOS^E, 

 and is termed by the botanist FABA VULGARIS. There 

 is only one species, though long cultivation has generated 

 a well-marked division between those cultivated in fields 

 and those cultivated in gardens, which has induced some 

 writers to separate them into two different species (F. 

 vulgaris arvensis and F. vulgar is hortensis) ; while the 

 aptitude of a few of the varieties to grow equally well 

 in the open field or in the garden has given rise to the 

 classification of a third species (F. vulgaris arvensis vel 

 hortensis), which has been adopted by Lawson and 

 others. The name leguminous has been, according to 

 Varro, applied to this order of plants because they were 

 removed from the ground by being pulled, not cut as 

 the other crops " legumina quce velluntur e terra non 

 subsecantur. Unde et legumina appellata quia ita le- 

 guntur" The generic name of the plant Faba, Paxton, 

 following Isodorus, tells us, is derived from the Greek word 

 0uyw, to eat. 



The first and the last divisions are those which come 

 before us as farm crops, as they are indiscriminately 



