PEAS.
Fully as ancient as the bean, as human food, is the pea, records of whose cultivation are found in the lake dwellings of Switzerland and Savoy, and in the early classic writings. No mention of peas is made in the records of early times in India or Egypt. So the fact that wild peas still flourish in Mediterranean countries is taken by botanists to mean that this region is the ancestral home from which one of the most valuable garden and field crops of the world has spread through the temperate regions, everywhere.
Field peas are grown as a green and a dry crop for stock, as pasture, ensilage and as green manure. Foreigners are not above eating them, but we feel squeamish about it, though as split peas we do consume in soups field peas without knowing it.
Garden peas are more delicate and sweet, and we consider these, in a multitude of varieties, among the choicest and most nutritious of all vegetables. Quantities are canned commer
cially, the smallest being the most expensive, the petit pois, of French cookery. We must believe that the sifting out of imperfect, undeveloped seeds of standard canning varieties supply a product that is inferior, and yet this grade often poses as the imported article from France.
A tremendous acreage is planted to peas as a market garden crop. The gardeners of all coun tries grow them for home use. They are a great crop for soil renovation, and for green manure in young orchards.
The sugar peas have sw et, edible pods, and are used as snap beans are. Among the numer ous varieties, those that have wrinkled seeds are sweeter and have less starch than those that are globular when dry.
Sweet peas are a race developed for their blos soms alone.