S16 



HISTORY OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



visions with them across vast desert tracts, they 

 gladly supply themselves with small dried sub- 

 stances which require much mastication, and 

 thus stimulate the salivary glands. Under these 

 circumstances parched chick-peas, or lehUhhy, are 

 in great demand, and are as common in the shops 

 as biscuits in those of England. In Grand Cairo 

 and Damascus there are many persons who make 

 it their sole business to fry peas, for the supply 

 of those who traverse the desert. 



The seeds of the kerkedan, a small shrub 

 found growing wild and sometimes cultivated in 

 the north of Nubia, are made into a kind of 

 bread, and form the principal food of the Ker- 

 rarish Arabs; and a decoction of the roasted 

 grains is used as a substitute for coffee. Another 

 shrub, called si/mka, indigenous to the same 

 country, produces legumes resembling peas, and 

 containing round rose-coloured seeds which af- 

 ford excellent nourishment for camels, and are, 

 when green, employed as human food. These 

 likewise the "Arabs collect and dry, and by hard 

 boiling obtain from them an oil which they use 

 instead of butter to grease their hair and bodies." 



Various descriptions of pulse are cultivated in 

 the East, but these are seldom of a large growth. 

 The culture of smaller legumes- as human food, 

 similarly with that of the millets and other 

 small-seeded grains, is adapted only to that state 

 of society in which the money-price of labour 

 is low, and yet where the climate and other con- 

 curring circumstances are obstacles to the culti- 

 vation of the more valuable kinds of vegetables. 

 Moisture and heat, as well as a soil comparatively 

 rich, are required for the production of rice; and 

 the cerealia grown in more temperate climates 

 cannot be raised unless there be either a suffi- 

 ciency of manure, which cannot be procured 

 without an abundant stock of domesticated ani- 

 mals, or a natural richness of soil, which is in- 

 compatible with dry land in a warm climate. 



In the elevated parts of India which lie out of 

 the direction of the periodical rains, a scanty ir- 

 rigation can at best be obtained, and that only 

 by sinking deep wells, or by constructing tanks 

 and reservoirs at a great expence; where these 

 imperfect means are not within reach, the ground 

 is scarcely ever moistened, as probably a shower 

 of rain does not fall during six months. Under 

 these circumstances the cultivation of pulse is 

 resorted to as a matter of necessity, and the 

 smaller and the more hardy these are, the more 

 certain is the prospect of their yielding a crop. 

 In sultry chmates there is often a portion of 

 humidity which plays in the atmosphere, and 

 which will form dew upon the leaves of a plant, 

 when the evaporative power of the naked and 

 baked earth is so great that not a condensed drop 

 will settle upon it, or a trace of moisture be 

 found. From this cause dew may be seen early 

 in the morning spangling the verdant lawn when 



there is no humidity whatever upon the gravel 

 walk; and upon a bumt-up heath, any plant 

 which may have preserved its greenness, will at- 

 tract moisture, when the withered grass con- 

 tinues perfectly dry. The pulses which are 

 so^vn in the rainless parts of India, not only 

 preserve themselves, but often aid in preserving 

 miUet and other small grain with which they 

 are mixed. When the Hindu, in his simple 

 husbandry, sows several kinds of seed on the 

 same land, he does not therefore give a proof of 

 his ignorance of the art. There is in it a little 

 of the schooling of experience, the practical 

 knowledge of the climate with which he has to 

 deal. He sows his small grain in order that he 

 may have a good crop if the season should send 

 him rain; and he at the same time sows pulse in 

 order that he may not only reap pulse in the 

 event of a drought, but that he may even then 

 perhaps obtain with it a little accompanying 

 grain.* 



The Lupine, (lupinus.) The name of this 

 well known plant is said to be derived from lupus 

 (a wolf), because it devours, as it were, all the 

 fertility of the soil; but this seems a very doubt- 

 ful explanation. These plants, of which there 

 are several species and varieties, are border flowers 

 in much esteem in gardens for their velvet-like 

 leaves and fine large flowers. They are vigorous 

 growing plants, and if cultivated in the fields 

 would afford the agriculturist a considerable 

 bulk of herbage. 



The white lupine is supposed to be the species 

 that was cultivated for this purpose by the Ro- 

 mans, though the yellow species is what is grown 

 in the fields in the present day in Italy, as human 

 food. In the south of France the same plant is 

 grown in the extensive plains of dry, poor soil 

 of that country, as a meliorating crop, to be 

 ploughed in where red manure is to be procured, 

 and where clover or other herbage would not 

 grow. The perennial and ligneous species may 

 be increased by pieces of the root, but they all 

 seed freely. 



Bitter Vetch, (oruhus.) This tribe, of which 

 there are several species common in the fields of 

 Britain, are easily known by their yellow and 

 white papilionaceous blossoms. 



The orobus luteus Haller considers as one of 

 the handsomest of the papilionaceous family. 

 Orobus tuberosus, according to Lightfoot, is in 

 great esteem among the highlanders of Scotland 

 for the tubercles of the root. They dry and chew 

 them in general, to give a better relish to their 

 liquor. They also affirm them to be good against 

 most disorders of the chest, and that by their 

 use they are enabled to repel hunger and thh'st 

 for a long time. In Breadalbane and Rosshire, 

 they sometimes bruise and steep them in water, 



* Library of Entertaining Knowledge. 



