ORIGIN OF THE CULTIVATED LEGUMES 265 
Vetches were sown by the Romans, as they are now by the 
English, as cattle food, but there is no evidence of ancient 
cultivation. 
The lupine (Lupinus albus). This legume was cultivated by the 
ancient Greeks and Romans as cattle food, but, though it grows 
wild in many varieties in various parts of the world, including 
our own country, it has not been largely brought into use, and 
now it shows every sign of passing out of cultivation. 
The soy bean (Dolichos soja). This is a new crop to the west- 
ern world; indeed, its introduction is but just being effected. 
It came to us from Japan, where, as in China, it has been culti- 
vated from the remotest antiquity for human food. It is certainly 
wild in Japan and most likely also in the regions to the south, 
where related species flourish even in the island of Java. The 
crop is commonly called the soja, or soy bean, but it more closely 
resembles the pea, while the so-called cowpea is more like a 
bean. With us the crop is used exclusively for stock food, both 
grain and forage being useful. 
The cowpea (Dolichos chinensis). This and the above species 
are giving the botanists much trouble. They are here put into 
the same genus, but they are being moved about so much, some- 
times together and sometimes separated, that it is difficult to 
keep track of them. There perhaps is a growing disposition to 
separate them, but they are here put in the same genus awaiting 
the final decision of the botanists. 
All this, however, does not concern us now further than 
to show that lines on which classification is based are often 
1 The student can hardly realize how rapidly species are recovered from the 
wild, cultivated for a time, and then abandoned for something better or at least 
for something else. Thus Darwin tells us, “ Animals and Plants under Domes- 
tication,” Vol. I, p. 336, quoting Heer, that the wheat of the lake dwellers in the 
early stone age was a small-headed variety with grains not half the size of 
modern wheat. This lasted down to the “ Helvetico-Roman age and then 
became extinct,” giving place to better races in turn, up to the latest improved 
and best yielding varieties. It appears, too, that in general these ancient grains 
were inferior to the modern. whether wheat, barley, oats, or what not, and that 
with cultivation has been associated a steadily progressive development. 
