THE PEA. 



3il 



but thn biuls on the stem produce fertile 

 branches. 



It is said that carbonic acid gas is generated 

 in great abundance wlien leguminous plants are 

 in tl\e highest vigour of vegetation. The quan- 

 tity of this gas which is then given out, and 

 more especially during the period of flowering, 

 is very considerable, and being heavier than at- 

 mospheric air, it is can-ied along the surface of 

 the earth into pits and cavities, in the same 

 manner as a ilood of water would be cari'ied, 

 only that its effects are the Bole indications of 

 its presence. 



It is said that miners, in fertile districts where 

 legumes are extensively cultivated, are but too 

 well aware of the production of this mephitic 

 gas, of the noxious effects of which they are 

 sometimes made fatally sensible. Under par- 

 ticular states of the weather, which are known 

 to the overseers from experience and observation, 

 the men do not then go to work until a fire- 

 grate has been let doAvn in one of the ventilation 

 jiits, as deep as the rooms or galleries in whicli 

 the operations are to be carried on. If the fire 

 in the grate will not burn, of course their labours 

 are suspended, until, by the play of the atmos- 

 pheric current between pits at different eleva- 

 tions, the superabundant carbonic acid gas is re- 

 moved. 



The principal legumes cultivated in Britain 

 are the pea, the bean, and the kidney-bean; 

 which, according to the analyses that have been 

 made, contain quantities of nutritive matter, 

 diminishing in the order in which they have 

 been enumerated, and all of them much less than 

 any of the cerealia. 



Peas contain fifty-seven and a half per cent, 

 of nutritive matter, a proportion of which is 

 saccharine. Beans have very nearly as much 

 nutriment, but it is not entirely composed of 

 the same principles. No saccharine matter ready 

 formed is found in this vegetable, which is con- 

 sidered a coarse though nutritive esculent. 

 Kidney-beans do not contain more than nine 

 per cent, of nutritive matter. 



The Pea (pimm), from the Celtic word pis, 

 a pea, is a climbing plant, furnished with ten- 

 drils, issuing from the terminations of the com- 

 pound leaves, and which, clinging round bodies 

 in their vicinity, afford support to the otherwise 

 recumbent stems. Tliere are several species, and 

 a great many varieties of the pea. Among the 

 species are, the common pea, pisum sativum; the 

 sea T^, pisum maritimum; the Cape Horn pea, 

 pisum Americanum; the yellow-flowering pea, 

 jnsum ocltrus. The varieties of the common pea 

 are numerous, and differ widely among them- 

 selves from the early /rame, a low plant, bearing 

 only one white blossom on each footstalk to tlie 

 crown, bearing heavy pink blossoms on a termi- 

 nating corymb. The rouncival grows ten or 



twelve feet high, and the imperial not two feet. 

 The sugar pea has pods, in which the inner film 

 is wanting, or much loss tough than usual, which 

 admits of boiling the pods entire, and eating them 

 in the same manner as kidney beans. 



The Common Pea (pisum sativum ). liike 

 many of our most familiar domestic vegetables, 

 the period of the introduction into Britain, or 

 even the native country of this vegetable, is in- 

 volved in obscurity. It is probable, however, 

 that it was introduced into Britain from the 

 warmer parts of Europe, and may have been 

 brought to these from Egypt and Syria. It is 

 kno\\-n in India, China, and Cochin China ; but 

 it is not very plentiful in those places, and there 

 is no evidence of its being a native plant. It is 

 more abundant in the Japan isles, the climate 

 and soil of which agree better with its habits; 

 and therefore there is reason to conclude that it 

 is not a native of veiy dry and burning regions ; 

 neitlier is it the offspring of very frigid climes, 

 since it is soon affected by cold, severe weather, 

 and the leaves become blackened by the autum- 

 nal frosts. 



Historical evidence would make it appear that 

 both the pea and the bean must not only have 

 been introduced, but extensively cultivated, in 

 some parts of Scotland, as well as in England, 

 at a very early period. It is on record, that 

 when the English forces were besieging a castle 

 in Lothian, in the year 1299, their supply of pro- 

 visions was exhausted, and their only resource 

 was in the peas and beans of the surrounding 

 fields. This circumstance would lead to a belief 

 that the pea was then one of the staple articles 

 of produce for human food. 



The more delicate kinds, however, do not ap- 

 pear to have been cultivated in England until a 

 much later period, since Fuller informs us that 

 peas, in the time of queen Elizabeth, were 

 brought from Holland, and were " fit dainties 

 for ladies, they came so far, and cost so dear." 

 In the reign of Henry VIII., too, the pea would 

 appear to be somewhat of a rarity, as in the 

 privy purse expenses of that king is an entry, 

 " paied to a man in rewarde for bringing pescodds 

 to the king's grace, iiiJ5. y'md." From a song, 

 however, called " London Lyckpeny," made in 

 the time of Henry VI., peacods appear to have 

 been commonly sold in London : 



" Then unto London I dyde me hye. 

 Of all the land it bcaryeth the pryse ; 

 ' Gode pcscodc,' one began to cry." 



At Windsor there is a street called " Peascod," 

 mentioned by that name in old documents. 



The use of the pea as an esculent, both in its 

 green and its dried state, is too familiar to need 

 description. Tliis plant is annually cultivated 

 to a great extent in Britain ; perhaps, since the 

 more general introduction of the potato, a dimi- 



