THE VEGETABLES OF NEW YORK 



for use in the ripened state. Its culture was considered 

 in every early gardening or agricultural book published 

 in any language of middle and northern Europe. It 

 would seem, from the early accounts of the pea on the 

 continent, that in the Dark and Middle ages this crop 

 was grown almost as commonly as any of the cereals, — 

 that is, was a chief resource against the frequent famines 

 and a prominent article in the diet of armies, navies, 

 and commercial shipping. Today, beans and potatoes, 

 introduced from America, have largely taken the place of 

 peas as a winter food in European countries. 



The pea was an early food resource of Britain; in 

 1066 it was one of the chief crops grown in England. 

 According to Rogers, peas are frequently mentioned in 

 the " Expenses of Collegiate and Monastic Houses " 

 between the years 1403 and 1538. 1 He cites as many 

 as sixty -one entries of pottage or porridge peas. It is 

 interesting to note that in these two centuries, so com- 

 mon were peas, that " pottage " and " porridge " meant 

 peas. Thomas Turner, 1577, in A Hundred Good 

 Points of Husbandrie, mentions yeas and peason 

 several times. Gerarde in his Herbal, 1597, gives the 

 first statement of the kinds of peas in England in his 

 day. He says: 



" There be divers sorts of Peason differing very 

 notably in many respects. Some are of the garden and 

 some of field, and yet both counted tame. Some with 

 tough skins or membranes on the cods, and others have 

 none at all, whose cods are to be eaten with the Peason 

 when they are young, as those of Kidney Beans; others 

 carry their fruit on the top of the branches, and they 

 are esteemed and taken for Scottish Peason, which is 

 not very common." 



Gerarde enumerates the following sorts: 



1 Pisum majus Rounceval Pease). 



(2) Pisum minus (Garden and Field Pease). 



(3) Pisum umbellatum (Tufted or Scottish 



Pease i . 



(4) Pisum excorticatum ( without skins in the 



cods). 



Every British book on vegetable gardening from 

 Gerarde down to the latest out of press discusses about 

 every aspect of pea culture and describes varieties. 

 A few quotations from the most noted garden writers 

 will serve to show the evolution of the pea. Skipping 

 80 years from Gerarde to John Worlidge's Systema 

 Horticulture, or the Art of Gardening, 1677, we 

 find the following very good description of peas grown 

 in the last half of the Seventeenth Century. 



" Of Pease 

 " Pease are of divers kinds, and some of them the 

 sweetest and most pleasant of all Pulses; the meaner 

 sort of them have been long acquainted with our English 

 air and soil; but the sweet and delicate sorts of them 

 have been introduced into our gardens only in this 

 latter age. 



" There are divers sorts of Pease now propagated in 

 England, as three several sorts of Hotspurs, the long, 

 the short, and Barns's Hotspur, Sandwich, five sorts 

 of Rouncivals, the Grey, White, Blew, Green and Maple 

 Rouncival. Three sorts of Sugar Pease, the large white, 

 small White, and Grey Sugar Pease. The Egg-Pease, 

 Wing-Pease, and Sickle Pease; whereof the Hot -spurs 

 are the most early, pleasant and profitable of all others. 

 The Sugar Pease with crooked Cods, the sweetest of all. 

 The large white and green Rouncival and the great 

 Egg Pease we shall more particularly advise to be propa- 

 gated in our Gardens. 



" The Hot-spurs are the speediest of growth of any, 

 that being sown about the middle of May will in six 

 weeks' time return ripe again into your hands, no 

 vegetable besides being so quick in its growth and 

 maturity; therefore let these be the first that you sow; 

 if sown in February or March they will come earlier than 

 any other sort sown before winter ; but if you sow them 

 in September, and can by Fences of Reed, or otherwise, 

 defend them from extream Frosts, you may have ripe 

 Peascods in May following. 



" The large Sugar Pease (which many take to be a 

 fair white sweet Pease succeeding the Hot-spur, but 

 erroneously) is a tender Pease planted in April, and, 

 ripe after midsummer, the cods are very crooked and 

 ill shaped, which being boyl'd with the unripe Pease in 

 them, are extraordinary sweet. The greatest discourage- 

 ment in raising these, is that their sweetness attracts 

 the small birds unto them, to their total destruction, 

 unless carefully prevented ; which is a sufficient argument 

 of their pre-excellency. 



" The large white and green Rouncivals, or Hastings, 

 are tender, and not to be set till the cold is over, and then 

 not very thick, for they spread much and mount high, 

 and therefore require the aid of tall sticks, every one 

 knows the worth of them. 



" There is another very large grey but extraordinary 

 sweet Pease, that is largely propagated, it is tender but 

 very fruitful, and deserves a large bed in your kitchen 

 garden." 



Names of varieties of vegetables seem to have 

 counted for but little in the seventeenth century for at 

 its end, 1693, John Evelyn, most admirable writer on 

 gardening of his times, in his The Compleat Gardener, 

 dismisses varieties of peas with this naive discussion: 



" Peas or Pease, are multiplied only by seed; 

 there are great Ones, little Ones, white Ones or 

 yellow Ones, and green Ones. All the world knows 

 they grow in Cods, and are almost round, and sometimes 

 half flat." 



It may be of most interest and profit in the further 

 history of the pea to discover so far as possible the 

 beginnings of the several groups of cultivated peas. 



Green peas and edible-podded peas. — The 

 ancients seemed to have used only ripe dried peas as a 

 food ; in the middle ages the green pods were cooked 

 whole and all peas were therefore edible-podded; still 



'Rogers, J. Thorald. History of Agriculture and Prices in England. 



