266 DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND PLANTS 
indistinct and difficult to establish, and to prepare the student 
for seeing both of these species described under various names, 
The cowpea has been recently introduced into our southern 
states from China, where it has been cultivated as human food 
from great antiquity. Like the soy bean this crop is fed freely 
to live stock in our country and consequently neither is used as 
human food.! 
1 Man has a strange aversion to consuming the same grain he feeds his 
stock, and he positively refuses to eat it if it be a recent importation. The 
first question asked of a new food plant is this: “Is it for man or animal?” 
without thinking it may be good for both; but the question once answered, the 
future of the thing is settled. This is why all efforts to introduce Indian corn 
into Europe to replace rye as human food have failed in the past and are likely 
to continue to fail in the future. Even the pauper resists what he considers to 
be putting him on a level with the animals. 
