published an account of his method of cultivation, in the Transactions of the Berne Society, in which he strongly recommends it to the attention of agriculturists. Among the advantages which it offers, are stated, its adaptation to all sorts of soils, the small quantity of manure which it requires, the trifling amount of labor for which it calls, and the small degree of exhaustion which it occasions to the soil, in comparison to the largeness of the return which it yields. These are great recommendations, but it is believed, that, in Britain, the climate is not sufficiently warm and dry for ripening the seeds. [In the United States, millet has been highly recommended as a fodder for cattle.-AM. ED.]

ELEVENTH WEEK-THURSDAY.

THE LEGUMINOUS PLANTS.-PEAS AND BEANS.

PULSE, or the legumes, are a numerous class of vegetable productions, widely diffused over the globe, several of which were very early made articles of cultivation. Of these, the pea and the bean, which are in most common use, shall form the subject of a short notice in this

paper.

The whole of the edible legumes, with the exception of some of the species which grow on trees, have their flowers papilionaceous, or, in shape, resembling butterflies. The seeds are contained in an oblong pod, consisting of two valves, on the upper suture of which they are placed alternately on each side. These seeds, in germinating, push forth only one stem, so that they do not tiller, like the corn-plants, but the buds on the stem produce fertile branches. All the kinds afford much less nutritive matter than the cerealia.

Peas contain fifty-seven and a half per cent. of nutritive matter, a proportion of which is saccharine. Beans have very nearly as much nutriment, but it is not entirely composed of the same principles. No saccharine matter,

ready formed, is found in this vegetable, which is considered coarse, but nutritive.

The pea is a climbing plant, furnished with tendrils at the terminations of the compound leaves. The varieties are very numerous. Of the common pea, the principal varieties are the white or yellow, and the gray. The sub-varieties are never ending. Of these, no fewer than twenty-two have been enumerated as objects of garden culture, differing in the color of the flowers, the height of the stalk, the time of coming to maturity, the produse of the pods, or the size or flavor of the seeds. There is a difference, also, in the degrees of tenderness and hardihood, which fit them for different exposures, and in the richness or poverty of the soil they demand, which requires a variety in the mode of cultivation. All these circumstances, which have been probably produced by various modes of treatment, are calculated to exercise the skill of the cultivator, and to afford a stimulus to his discriminating industry.

The native country of the common pea is not known, as it was a cultivated vegetable before the commencement of botanical history. It is probable, however, that it was introduced into Britain from the warmer parts of Europe, and may have been brought to these from Egypt and Syria. It is known in India, China, and Cochin China, but it is not very plentiful in those places, and there is no evidence of its being a native plant. It is more abundant in the Japan Isles, the climate and soil of which appear to agree better with its habits. It seems equally to droop under the extremes of heat and cold; and we may therefore conclude, that it has taken its origin in some of the warmer latitudes of the temperate zone.

Historical evidence would make it appear that both the pea and the bean must not only have been introduced, but must have been extensively cultivated, in some parts of Scotland, as well as in England, at a very early period. It is on record, that when the English forces were besieging a castle in Lothian, in the year 1299, their supply of provisions was exhausted, and their only resource was in the peas and beans of the surrounding fields. This

circumstance seems to lead to the belief, that these plants were then raised extensively as articles of common food. Fuller, however, mentions that peas were brought from Holland, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, which were "fit dainties for ladies, they came so far, and cost so dear." This must allude to some more delicate kinds, which had not, even at that comparatively late period, been introduced into the British gardens.

Peas are at present annually cultivated to a great extent in Britain, and in the United States, though their use has been considerably circumscribed by the introduction of potatoes. They are consumed in immense quantities as sea provisions; they are in familiar use in families ; and they furnish a valuable food for horses.

The bean is supposed to have been introduced into England by the Romans. The Greeks were of opinion that its native country was Egypt, perhaps because they received it for cultivation from that country. Some travellers assure us that the bean is found growing wild in Persia, near the shores of the Caspian Sea; but that part of Asia has been subjected to so many fluctuations, so many alternations of culture and destruction, that it is not easy to decide how far any plants, which may there be discovered vegetating spontaneously, are really indigenous, or only the remains of a former cultivation.

Beans are cultivated over many countries, as far to the eastward as China and Japan; and in many parts of Africa they are extensively used as an esculent. From the northern coast of this continent, some of the most valuable varieties were transplanted by the Moors into Spain, and by the Portuguese into their own country.

The bean is only used in Britain for culinary purposes in a green state;* when mature and dried, it is considered as a useful food for horses. King stated the annual consumption in Britain, about the middle of last century, to be, of beans four millions, and of peas seven millions of bushels. This is a large consumption for that

*[Then they do not know in Britain how good a dish is baked pork and beans.-AM. ED.]

period; but the accuracy of the statement has been doubted, though, certainly, a very considerable exportation of horse beans was at that time made, for the use of the negroes in our plantations.

All the cultivated beans are annuals, having upright fibrous stems, rising from two to four feet high. The flowers are usually white, with a black spot in the middle of the wing. These are succeeded by long thick pods, woolly within, and enclosing flat seeds. The flowers are very fragrant, and the rich perfume of a bean field, when the plants are in full blossom, is as familiar as it is delightful to all lovers of simple rural pleasures.

There is another species of this plant, called the kidney-bean, some varieties of which are found in cultivation throughout almost every civilized country of the western, as well as the eastern hemisphere. In England, only the immature pod is used for food; but in France, the ripe seeds, known by the name of haricots, are prepared in various ways as a favorite edible. A variety

of this bean, called fricolli, is in general demand all over Mexico.

The stems of the kidney-bean, are, in all the varieties, more or less voluble, and, contrary to the ordinary law of Nature, instead of turning in the direction of the sun, turn in a contrary direction. To account for this, it has been supposed that the native place of this plant is on the southern side of the equator, and that the plant, though through so many generations removed to the north, "is still obedient to the course originally assigned to it, turning in a direction which, in its native climate, would be towards the sun. ""* Should this prove to be the case, which the analogy of Nature renders very probable, it furnishes a remarkable confirmation of a fact supported by many proofs, that the Creator has impressed, not merely a certain constitution, but certain habits on plants, corresponding to the localities in which they were intended to grow, originally independent of external stimuli, and sometimes, as in the present instance, unaffectable by them.

* Loudon's Encyclopedia of Gardening, p. 694.

ELEVENTH WEEK-FRIDAY.

ESCULENT ROOTS.-THE POTATO.

THERE is a great variety of roots and tubers, fit for the use of man and domestic animals, several of which are extensively cultivated, such as turnips, onions, carrots, parsnips, and beets. The most remarkable, however, and useful of them all, is the potato, to which, on this branch of our subject, I shall at present confine my attention.

The same mystery which hangs over the native place of most of the other plants, made use of by man as objects of cultivation, long attached also to the potato; but it appears now to be satisfactorily proved, that it is indigenous in the west coast of South America. In Chili and Peru it is found growing wild among the rocks, in remote places, where it is not probable that the seed could have been carried by the hand of man; and what seems to confirm the idea that it is there in its uncultivated state, is, that the flowers are always pure white, without any of those diversities of color, which, in conformity to a wellknown law of Nature, exist in the cultivated varieties.*

The potato plant seems first to have been introduced into Britain by Sir Walter Raleigh, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; but for more than a century, its progress was exceedingly confined, owing probably to erroneous modes of cultivation, and to an improper manner of preparing it for food. In the reign of James I., this root was considered a great rarity, and sold so dear as two shilings per pound; and even as late as the beginning of last century, it seems not to have entered into the list of agricultural produce. Bradley, who wrote about the year 1720, and who treated expressly of new improvements

*Account by Mr. Cruickshank, published in Dr. Hooker's 'Botanical Miscellany,' and quoted in the Journal of the Royal Institution,' for Decem 1831.