1890.] History of Garden Vegetables. 721 
SOJA BEAN. Soja hispida Moench. 
This leguminous plant, although popular in eastern countries, 
can scarcely be expected to obtain a foot-hold in European or 
American gardens. According to Bretschneider,” a Chinese 
writing of 163-85 B.C. records that Shen nung, 2800 B.C, 
sowed the five cereals, and another writing of A. D. 127-200 ex- 
plains that these five cereals were rice, wheat, Panicum italicum, 
P. miliaceum, and the Soja. The same are also mentioned in the 
“Classics.” The use of this bean as a vegetable is also recorded 
in authors of the fifth, fourteenth, and sixteenth centuries. The 
first mention of Soja that I note is by Kæmpfer, who was in 
Japan in 1690, and in his account of his travels he gives con- 
siderable space to this plant. It also seems to be mentioned by 
Ray” in 1704. It is much cultivated in China and Cochin- 
china.” There are a large number of varieties —“ as many as you 
have of beans,” as a Japanese friend informed me. Seed was 
brought from Japan to America by the Perry Expedition on its 
return, and were distributed from the U. S. Patent Office” in 
1854. I have since then received some of the seed from the 
South under the name of the cow-pea. In France the seed re- 
ceived distribution in 1855.” In 1869 Martens? describes thir- 
teen varieties, 
` The Soja Bean is called in France, soja, pots oleagineux de la 
Chine ; in Germany, soja-bohne ; * in Japan, daidsu or mame, 
the send miso ;* in China, yeou-teou. 
In some of its varieties this bean may be found useful for for- 
age purposes, or perhaps for field culture. 
SORREL. Rumex sp. 
The Sorrels are much used in many parts of Europe, but they 
do not seem to be popular in English-speaking countries. A 
V Bretschneider. Bot. Sin., 75, 78, 52, 59. 
18 Kæmpfer. Amoen., 1712. 
1 Ray. Hist. Suppl., 1704, 438. 
2 Loureiro Cochinch., 441. 
