Legume

“ Fig. 392. Follicle of Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris) .
Fig. 393. Legume of a Sweet Pea, opened.
Fig. 394. Loment or jointed legume of a Tick-Trefoil (Desmodium) .
368. The Legume or true Pod, such as the peapod (Fig. 393) , and the fruit of the Leguminous or Pulse family generally, is one which opens along the dorsal as well as the ventral suture. The two pieces into which it splits are called Valves. A Loment is a legume which is constricted between the seeds, and at length breaks up crosswise into distinct joints, as in Fig. 394. ”

“ A large family having characteristic pealike flowers, a description of which has already been given in Chapter I. They all bear legumes, a pod that splits down one side, not both, as in Brassicaceæ. Besides the pea, the bean, vetch, alfalfa, lentil, locust tree, and dozens of valuable timber trees in the tropics belong here. Flowers all showy and absolutely dependent upon insects for fertilization. Seeds highly nutritious in many genera, and the roots of nearly all have bacteria associated with them. (See chapter on Food Habits of Plants.) ”

“ Leguminous crops—Peas and beans.
Two cultural groups are included in the legumes,—the bean group (including all field, garden, and kidney beans, and the cowpea) comprising warm-weather plants; the pea group (including field and garden pea, the Windsor or Broad bean) comprising cool-weather plants. The former are quickly susceptible to frost and should be planted only after the weather is settled. The latter are among the earliest vegetables to be planted. The leguminous crops are not transplanted, the seed being placed where the plants are to grow.
Salad plants and pot-herbs (“greens”) . ”

“ The legumes, such as beans, lentils, and peas, form an aliment of great value, containing more nitrogen even than the cereals, but with fat in very small proportion, while starchy matter and the mineral elements abound in both groups. ”

“ In the development of leguminous crops we have a valuable field of research. Of the many hundreds of legumes, we now cultivate only about a dozen species, such as beans, peas, clover, alfalfa, crimson clover, cowpeas, soy beans and the like, representing a natural adaptation to as many localities. None of the species ordinarily cultivated in the northern United States are natives of this great section. Yet an examination of the botanies shows that some 150 different species of legumes are natives of this section. ”

“ To this class belong cucumbers, eggplant, winter and summer squash, vegetable marrow, tomatoes, peppers, and okra, which are in reality fruits but are used as vegetables. Flower vegetables include California, or French, artichokes, and cauliflower, all of which are in reality the buds of flowers or plants and are eaten for food.
31. LEGUMES form a fourth class of vegetables, and they include all the varieties of beans, peas, and lentils. When these foods are mature and dried, they have the highest food value of all the vegetables. ”

“ Legumes as Soil Improvers.—A means of soil improvement that is well understood by progressive farmers is the use of legumes to improve the soil. The legumes include a large family of plants of which the bean, the pea and the clovers are outstanding examples. Such plants have on their roots nodules which house nitrogen-gathering bacteria. These bacteria absorb nitrogen from the air in the soil and, in the ordinary process of growth, death and decay, make this nitrogen available to the host plants, leaving a residue in the soil for the roots of plants that are to follow. ”

“ General Composition of Legumes.—Peas, beans, lentils, and peanuts are the legumes most generally used for human food. As a class, they are characterized by high protein content and a comparatively low per cent of starch and carbohydrates. They contain the largest amount of nitrogenous compounds of any of the vegetable foods, and hence are particularly valuable in the human ration as a substitute for meats. ”

“ There are also found the trees called by Bruce Ergett Dimmo, and Ergett-el-Kurûn, and the Farek, Bauhinia Acuminata of the same writer.
13. A kind of legumen called Fûl, bean. It is not much used for food, but as an ornament by the women, being strung in the form of beads, when quite dry, at which time it is very hard. It is also used as a weight of four or five grains.
14. A beautiful legumen, of a scarlet colour, with a black spot at the point of attachment to its cyst. It is called in Dar-Fûr Shûsh; is about the size of a small pea, hard and polished; grows on a plant resembling tares ”

“ It is clear that legumes and cereals are helpful associates in rotation and in some combinations. May not the principle be pushed much farther by the modern processes of selection and culture, so that legumes and cereals may be made more intimate companions in culture; so that, indeed, such helpful associates may replace weeds as the constant and spontaneous companions of the crops we cultivate? ”

“ Vegetable Garden.—Asparagus, rhubarb, spinach, &c., should be uncovered., and the beds hoed or dug lightly. Hardier sorts of vegetable seeds and plants, such as beets, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, lettuce, onions, parsley, parsnips, peas, potatoes, radishes, spinach, turnip, &c., should all be sown or planted by the middle of the month if the soil is dry and warm, and in all cases, where practicable, before the end of the month. It is essential, in sowing seeds now, that they be well firmed in the soil. ”

“ Vegetable Garden.—But little can be done in the northern states except to prepare manure, and get sashes, tools, &c., in working order; but in sections of the country where there is little or no frost the hardier kinds of seeds and plants may be sown and planted, such as asparagus, cabbage, cauliflower, carrot, leek, lettuce, onion, parsnip, peas, spinach, turnip, &c. In any section where these seeds can be sown in open ground, it is an indication that hotbeds may be started for the sowing of such tender vegetables as tomatoes, egg and pepper plants, &c. ”

“ The plants have no true bark, or rings of growth. Most of them live only one season. Their seeds are fertilized by pollen carried by the wind, as in palms and pines, and like them are borne on stalks or spikes. A head of wheat or an ear of corn is something like a pine cone, but the seeds are covered and protected. This class of plants gives us a great variety and quantity of grain foods, for men and animals and birds.
Last of all, Nature made plants with the two-leafed seeds, net-veined leaves, hard-wood stems that always show rings of growth, stiff bark, beautiful flowers and fruit. ”

“ Plants take all their nourishment in the form of soups, and very weak ones at that. Plant food to be available must be soluble to the action of the feeding root tubes; and unless it is available it might, as far as the present benefiting of your garden is concerned, just as well not be there at all. Plants take up their food through innumerable and microscopic feeding rootlets, which possess the power of absorbing moisture, and furnishing it, distributed by the plant juices, or sap, to stem, branch, leaf, flower and fruit. ”

“ This part is not only in the Bean, and the Seeds above mentioned; but in all others: being that which upon the Vegetation of the Seed, becomes the Root of the Plant; which therefore I call the Radicle: by which, I mean the Materials, abating the Formality, of a Root, ’Tis not easie to be observed, saving in some few Seeds, amongst which, that of the Bean is the most fair and ample of all I have seen; but that of some other Seeds, is, in proportion, greater; as of Fœnugreek, which is almost as big as one of its Lobes. ”

“ The average gardener doesn't seem to associate the growing of vegetables with an idea of beauty, but he will find, if he looks into the matter, that the vegetable-garden can be made really ornamental. A row of carrots with its feathery green foliage is quite as attractive as many of our decorative plants; and beets, with crimson foliage, are really tropical in their rich coloring. Parsley and lettuce make excellent and ornamental edgings for beds containing other vegetables. Tomatoes, trained to upright trellises, are quite as showy as many kinds of flowers, when their fruit begins to ripen. ”

“ We can now have a general idea how the nutritious sap, acted upon by all the agents above mentioned during its stay in the cellular substance of the leaf, and returned from thence impregnated with them into the bark, may prove the source of increase, and of peculiar secretions, in the vegetable frame. That portion of sap sent to the flower and fruit undergoes no less remarkable changes, for purposes to which those curious organs are devoted; nor is it returned from thence, as from the leaves, to answer any further end. ”

“ Both begin in a seminal point but the seed is not analogous; both develop—but not by an analogous growth; both require food, but the selection, the digestion and the assimilation are different. The mineral kingdom is the lowest. Out of it, by help of the sun and air, the vegetable procures its materials of growth; in turn the vegetable kingdom is the magazine from which the animal kingdom is sustained; to each, thus the soil contains the original elements; the vegetable is the chemical manipulator, and the animal, the final recipient of its products. ”

“ To all the foregoing secretions of vegetables may be added those on which their various colours depend. We can but imperfectly account for the green so universal in their herbage, but we may gratefully acknowledge the beneficence of the Creator in clothing the earth with a colour the most pleasing and the least fatiguing to our eyes. We may be dazzled with the brilliancy of a flower-garden, but we repose at leisure on the verdure of a grove or meadow. Of all greens the most delicate and beautiful perhaps is displayed by several umbelliferous plants under our hedges in the spring. ”

“ Vegetable Garden.—Beets, beans, carrots, corn, cucumbers, lettuce, peas and radishes may be sown for succession. This is usually a busy month, as many crops have to be gathered, and, if hoeing is not promptly seen to, weeds are certain to give great trouble. Tomatoes should be tied up to trellises or stakes if fine-flavoured and handsome fruit is desired, for if left to ripen on the ground they are apt to have a gross earthy flavour. ”

“ Some quite artistic effects can be secured in the vegetable-garden by the exercise of a little thought. The large-leaved beet has foliage of a dark, rich crimson quite as ornamental as that of many plants used by gardeners to produce the "tropical effects" [82] which many persons admire. When planted in the background, with fine-foliaged plants like carrot or parsley in front of it, the effect will be extremely pleasing because of the contrast of color, and also of habit. ”

“ Viewed from a distance, their appearance is exactly like that of the soft surface of a wheat-field. The only vegetable life consists of tiny bunches of a low, hardy plant with wooly gray-green leaves. ”

“ Strange vegetable forms grow in the clefts and hang over the rocks. Others are spheroidal in shape, resting upon the surface of the parched earth. Others rise vertically to a great height, like carved and fluted columns. Some throw out branches, crooked, shaggy branches, with hirsute oval leaves. Yet there is a homogeneousness about all these vegetable forms, in their colour, in their fruit and flowers, that proclaims them of one family. ”

“ There is an increasing tendency to specialize in vegetable growing. The production of celery, onions, muskmelons, watermelons, cabbages, cauliflowers, tomatoes and sweet corn, to mention only some of the most striking examples, are becoming more and more localized. Even where vegetables and flowers are grown under glass, not only is each house devoted to a single species, but, notably in the case of roses, growers are restricting themselves more and more to a few varieties. ”

“ Therefore, though the sap rises and descends in the plant, it does not appear to undergo a real circulation.
The last of the organs of plants is the flower, or blossom, which produces the fruits and seed. These may be considered as the ultimate purpose of nature in the vegetable creation. From fruits and seeds animals derive both a plentiful source of immediate nourishment, and an ample provision for the reproduction of the same means of subsistence. ”

“ A small, most prolific bean, which we plant between the maize, and which spreads over the whole field, had produced us a large stock, while the less hardy vegetables, such as lettuce, spinach, and cabbage, covered the garden all the winter through. ”

“ The providence of Nature about Vegetables, is in no part manifested more, then in the various contrivances about the seed, nor indeed is there in any part of the Vegetable so curious carvings, and beautifull adornments, as about the seed; this in the larger sorts of seeds is most evident to the eye; nor is it lest manifest through the Microscope, in those seeds whose shape and structure, by reason of their smalness, the eye is hardly able to distinguish. ”

“ It is abundant throughout the vegetable kingdom; it forms the first food of plants when they germinate in the seed; when the first little sprout is projected from a grain of corn, a portion of the farina, or starch, is changed into sugar, which may be called the blood of the plant, and from it is drawn the nourishment necessary to its expansion and appearance above the surface of the earth. In the latter growth of many plants an inverse process is carried on, as in the Indian corn, which I have just spoken of. ”

“ Originally nothing in the way of fruit, flower, grain or garden vegetables was anything but wild and unproductive, or bitter, tasteless or unprofitable. Chemical changes are made in the plant by the soil in which it grows, because it is from the soil that it gets its food. ”