THE BEAN. 



813 



The produce of peas in flour is as tliree to two 

 of the bulk in grain, and husked and split for 

 soups, as four to two. A thousand parts of pea 

 flour afforded Sir H. Davy 574 parts of nutritive 

 or soluble matter; that is, 601 of mucilage, 22 

 of sugar, .35 of gluten, and 16 of extract or in- 

 soluble matter. 



Of field peas there are several varieties. The 

 dark sorts are generally the longest in coming to 

 maturity, and they have the rankest flavour. In 

 favourable places, if they are sown in autumn, 

 and cleared the instant they are ripe, they may 

 be followed by turnips the same year; but if the 

 sowing is delayed tiU after Christmas, the ground 

 will not be free in time for any crop save winter 

 wheat. A crop of peas is considered to improve 

 the soil, especially for turnips. But it is not on 

 the whole very profitable, unless upon very rich 

 loams, in which situation they are often sown 

 with beans, and the produce used as food for 

 stock. The bean-stalks, from their greater 

 strength, prevent the peas fi^om lodging. 



The Pisum Americanum is a biennial plant, 

 which was found growing at Cape Horn by some 

 of the people attached to Lord Anson's expedi- 

 tion. This fresh pulse was a most welcome ad- 

 dition to the ordinary sea provisions, and under 

 such circumstances it appeared to be of more ex- 

 cellent flavour than the common pea. It was 

 accordingly brought home and propagated ; but 

 was soon found not to e(jual even the worst sort 

 of those which were already in cultivation, and 

 it is now only preserved in botanical collections. 

 The flowers are blue, each peduncle sustaining 

 four or five flowers, the pods taper, and the seeds 

 are verj' small. 



The yellow flowering pea is found in a wild 

 state in the com-fields of Sicily and some parts 

 of Italy ; but is here merely preserved in botanic 

 gardens for the sake of variety. The peduncles 

 have but one flower each, and the pods and seeds 

 are larger than those of the sea-pea. They are 

 sometimes eaten; but they are coarse and of 

 little value. 



The Sea Pea (pisum maritimum) . This plant 

 is a native of Britain, is a perennial, and grows 

 among loose stones by the sea shore. The seeds 

 have a bitter and unpleasant taste ; yet, accord- 

 ing to Turner, in former times of scarcity they 

 were used extensively as food. 



The Bean fvicia faba), has been cultivated 

 in Britain from very remote antiquity, having 

 been in all probability introduced into this coun- 

 try by the Romans. It is said to have originated 

 in Egypt; perhaps because the Greeks, from 

 whom we have the earliest accounts of it, re- 

 ceived it from that country as a cultivated ve- 

 getable. Some travellers afiirm that the bean is 

 found growing wild in Persia, near the shores of 

 the Caspian ; but that part of Asia has been sub- 

 jected to so many fluctuations, to so many alter- 



nations of culture and destruction, that it is not 

 easy to decide whether any plants which may 

 be discovered vegetating spontaneously be really 

 indigenous, or only the remains of a former cul- 

 tivation. In many parts xA Britain, where all 

 other memorials of former habitations and cul- 

 ture have been swept away, certain plants are 

 found growing which a traveller passing hastily 

 over the country would very naturally describe 

 as indigenous, since of their introduction the 

 present inhabitants of the vicinity could most 

 probably give him no account, but which, from 

 history and the nature of the plants themselves, 

 are known to be exotics introduced at a specific 

 time. 



Beans are cultivated over many countries, as 

 far to the eastward as China and Japan, and 

 they are very generally used as an esculent in 

 many parts of Africa. From its northern coast 

 some of the more valuable varieties were trans- 

 planted by the Moors into Spain, and by the 

 Portuguese into their own country. 



This plant is grown abundantly in Barbary, 

 where it is usually full-podded at the latter end 

 of Febmary, and continues in bearing during 

 the whole of spring. When stewed with oil and 

 garlic, beans form, according to Shaw, the prin- 

 cipal food of persons of aU classes. 



The bean in its green state is well known as 

 a culinary vegetable. When matm-e and dried 

 it is never used as human food in this country ; 

 but is then considered good, though coarse, nour- 

 ishment for labouring horses. Campbell, in his 

 Political Survey, published in 1774, mentions, 

 that " beans ai-e exported for the food of the ne- 

 groes in our plantations, and are employed in 

 feeding horses at home ; so that altogether they 

 are in daily use, and most certainly turn to a 

 very considerable amount." King stated the 

 annual consumption of beans at that period to 

 be four millions, and of peas seven millions of 

 bushels. Campbell, indeed, considered this es- 

 timate to be excessive ; but if it at all approxi- 

 mates to the truth, it shows that these legumes 

 were then cultivated to a very great extent. 

 Provisions for this unhappy race of human beings 

 are in the present day somewhat better selected, 

 and horse-beans do not any longer form an article 

 of export to the colonies. 



All the cultivated beans are aimuals, having 

 upright fibrous stems, rising from two to four 

 feet high. The flowers are usually white, with 

 a black spot in the middle of the wing ; these 

 are succeeded by long thick legumes, wooUy 

 within, and enclosing large flat seeds. These 

 flowers are very fragi'ant ; and the rich perfume 

 of a bean-field, when the plants are in full blos- 

 som, is as familiar as it is delightful to all lovers 

 of simple rural pleasures. The popular division 

 of the several varieties is, like that of peas, 

 into field beans and garden beans; the same va- 

 2 u 



