November 7. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
03 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
D 
M 
D 
W 
NOVEMBER 7—13, 1854. 
Weather near London in 
Barometer. Thermo. Wind. 
1853. 
Rain in 
Inches. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
It. & S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
af. Sun. 
Day of 
Year. 
7 
To 
Lombardy Poplar leafless. 
30.250—30.166 
58—46 
N. 
_ 
6 a 7 
22 a 4 
5 
39 
17 
16 
u 
311 
8 
w 
30.322—30.252 
55—25 
w. 
— 
8 
20 
6 
19 
18 
16 
7 
312 
9 
Tn 
Prince of Wales Born. 
1841. 
30.517—30.459 
51—24 
N.W. 
— 
10 
18 
7 
9 
19 
16 
2 
313 
10 
F 
[Lord Mayor’s 
Day. 
30.429—30.246 
51—27 
N.W. 
— 
11 
17 
8 
8 
20 
15 
56 
314 
11 
s 
Bunting mute. 
30.262—30.207 
53—28 
N.F.. 
— 
13 
15 
9 
16 
21 
15 
50 
315 
12 
Sun 
22 Sunday after Trinity. 
30.308—30.043 
50—38 
N.E. 
03 
15 
14 
10 
27 
d 
15 
43 
316 
13 
M 
29 . 912 — 29.760 
46—31 
N.E. 
— 
17 
12 
11 
40 
23 
15 
34 
317 
Meteorology of the Week. —At Chiswick, from observations during the last twenty-seven years, the average highest and lowest tem¬ 
peratures of these days are 51.4°, and 36.9°, respectively. The greatest heat, 63°, occurred on the 12th, in 1841 ; and the lowest cold, 21 °, on 
the 12th, in 1843. During the period 102 days were fine, and on 97 rain fell. 
Many doubts have wo heard expressed whether the 
Beans mentioned twice in the Old Testament (2 Samuel 
xvii. 28; and Ezekiel iv. 9), belonged to the Kidney 
Bean or to the Common Bean genus of modern gar¬ 
deners. We have no doubt upon the point ourselves, 
because, in tho book of the Prophet last named, he is 
directed to take “ Wheat, and Barley, and Beans , and 
Lentils, and Millet, and Fitches, and put them in one 
vessel, and make bread thereof.” Now, the flour of all 
the seeds mentioned, if, by “ Beans,” our common Beau 
{Faba vulgaris) is intended, was very usually employed 
for making coarse bread for the poorer classes; but the 
flour of tho Kidney Bean was never so employed. 
The Hebrew word translated as above is Pul, and 
from this word is derived our more comprehensively 
employed word, Pulse, for “ Pulse” includes every 
papilionaceous plant bearing its seeds in a pod. So in 
Hindoostanee, Pliulee is the namo of any pod of the 
same kinds of plants. Our word Bean is probably 
derived from the Arabic Ban, which is the Arabian 
name of the Coffee Bean or Berry. 
Dr. Kitto says that the kinds most common in Syria 
are the White Horse Bean and the Kidney Bean. The 
paintings of Egypt show that the Bean was cultivated 
in that country in very early times. It is stated by 
Herodotus that Beans were held in abhorrence by the 
Egyptian priesthood, and that they were never eaten by 
the people. This, however, is too exclusive a declara¬ 
tion ; and as it is certain that they were extensively 
cultivated, the statement made by Diodorus is the truth 
probably, namely, that the abstinence from Beans by 
tho Egyptians was not general. It may be true that 
Beans did not in the prophetical times form so con¬ 
siderable a portion of the diet of the poorer Egyptians 
as they do at present; and this renders the inspired 
symbolical writing the more emphatic, for, by telling the 
Prophet to make his broad of Beans and other inferior 
seeds mixed with Wheat, it warned tho more plainly of 
the privations to which the besieged Israelites would be 
subjected. 
At present, Beans cooked in various modes are a 
very common food in the East; and Dr. Shaw, when 
travelling in Barbary, found “ Beans, after they are 
boiled and stewed with oil and garlic, are the principal 
food of persons of all distinctions.” 
Among Pulse, Pliny tells us that the Romans gave 
the first place to the Bean, “ because thereof men have 
assayed to make bread.” “ Mauy are the uses of the 
Beau,” he adds, “ not only as a food for four-footed 
animals, but also especially for men. Among many 
nations it is mingled with corn, and makes the bread 
exceedingly solid.” Not only did one of the chief 
families of Rome, the Fabii, derive its name from their 
ancestor being celebrated for the culture of the Bean 
{Faba), but it was an especial portion of the religious 
offerings to the deified Carnea. Hence the festival of 
this goddess was called Fabaria. 
Pythagoras condemned the eating of Beans, not only 
as indigestible, but, as Pliny says, “ because the souls 
of the dead reside in them.” This seems to have been 
a mistake of Pliny’s; and Rhodius, Gellius, and others, 
most probably give the reason of Pythagoras more 
correctly when they state, that he considered that it was 
the material from which all animals are created. It is 
one among many curious coincidences between modern 
science and the opinions of the old philosophers, that 
chemical analysis shews, that in Beans there are more 
animo-vegetable components—that is, of matters con¬ 
taining much nitrogen—than there are in almost any 
other seeds. Einliof found 417 parts of vegeto-animal 
matter in 3,840 of Beans, or nearly one-eighth. 
Holland thus translates what else Pliny has said of 
the Bean, in his “Natural History:”—“Varro also 
affirmeth that the great priest, or sacrificer, called the 
Flameu, abstains from Beans, both in those respects 
aforesaid, as also that there be seen in the flour thereof 
certain letters or characters that shew heaviness and 
signs of death. Further, there was observed in old 
time a religious ceremony in Beans; for when they 
had sown their grounds, their manner was, of all other 
corn to bring back with them out of the fields some 
Beans, for good-luck sake, presaging thereby, that their 
corn would return home again to them. Likewise in 
sales by auction it was thought that if Beans were 
intermingled with the goods offered to be sold they 
would be lucky and gainful to the seller.” 
It may have been founded upon this opinion of the 
good-luck conferred by Beans that they came to bo em¬ 
ployed by the Greeks in balloting. They were of two 
sorts, white and black; the white were whole, and were 
the symbol of acquittal, but tho black Beans were 
pierced with a hole, and conveyed a vote for condemna¬ 
tion. Hence Aristophanes calls those judges who lived 
upon gifts received by them fordoing justice, “ Bean- 
eaters” {KvafxOTT wyes). 
The superstitious opinions of the Greeks and others 
No. CCCXIX., Vox.. XIII. 
