982 History of Garden Vegetables. 
two hundred to two thousand four hundred years before Christ 
and have been excavated from the ruins of Troy, but appear 
among the débris of the bronze age of the lake-dwellers 
ancient Switzerland; and the variety found continued to the 
3 
d 
times of the Romans. Beans were also found at Teneriffe’ at 
the period of the discovery; and Bretschneider® records that, 
about 140-86 B.C., during the reign of the Emperor Wu-ti, the 
celebrated general Chang-kien brought the bean from Westem 
Asia; but these were probably only better varieties than those 
then grown in China. The bean was grown by the ancient ; 
Romans and Greeks, and finds frequent mention in their writings 4 
and in Egypt was subject to many superstitious beliefs and prejt- 
dices.” This bean is now more or less cultivated in all quarters 
of the globe. It reached the British North American Colonies 
early in the seventeenth century, having been planted by Gos 
nold in the Elizabeth Islands, near the coast of Massachusetts, 
in 1602. Beans were under cultivation also in Newfoundland 35 
early as 1622, in New Netherlands in 1644, and in Virginia prot 
to 16482 Atthe present time Vilmorin? describes twelve gardet 
and four field varieties as worthy of culture in France. In Eng 
land this bean is very extensively grown. Dr. Alefield® had 
separated forty varieties in 1862. In America they are but little 
grown, and our best seed-catalogues enumerate no more u 
four varieties. 
Linnæus forms this bean into two botanical varieties, 35 ae 
also Moench, who names the one Aortensis, or the garden me 
the other eguina, or the horse-bean. These are both fig z 
ape by the early botanists: the hortensis or gardes : 
y Fuchsius (1542), Tragus (1552), etc.; the eguina is desch" 
by Pena and “spe in oe ` pean (15 70), and by Lyt? a 
his “ Dodoens” (1 586), as well as by Dodonzus in I 566. : 
beat 
* G. Schweinfurth, Nature, Jan. 31, 1883, 314. 
2 De Candolle, Orig. Des Pl. Cult., 272. 
3 Gard. Chron., 1866, 1068; De Candolle, Orig. Des Pl. Cult., 255- 
4 Darwin, An. and Pl., 1868, i. 385. 
s Gea Coll. of Voy. of the Port, London, 1789, 183. 
Bretschneider, On the Study, etc., 15. Phila., 1804 i 
7 For an excellent summary, fa « Travels of Anacharsis,” 1804, 1% © 
157. , 210. 
3 U, S. Pat. of Rept., 1553, 221. 9 Vilmorin, Les He pina 
7° Alefield, Bonplandia, x. 1862, s. 348; quoted from Darwin, l. & 
