BEAN, Paba, a genus of plants of the natural order leguminosx, sub-order papil innaccv, included by Linnaeus and many other botanists in the genus ricia (see VE'rcu), from which it is distinguished chiefly by the leathery tumid pods, spongy within, and by the large scar on the end of the COMMON B. (F. vulgarA, vicia faba of Linnaeus) is somewhat doubtfully supposed to be a native of the borders of the Caspian sea; it has been in cultivation front remote antiquity in Europe as well as in Asia. It is an annual plant, generally from 2 to 4 ft. high, with thick angular stem, leaves with 2 to 5 oval leallets,and destitute of tendrils. The pods arc thick,long, and wooly within: the seeds more or less ovate and flattened. The flowers, which are almost without stalks, arc ordinarily white, with a black spot in the middle of the wing: but there is a variety with flowers entirely white, and another in which they arc scarlet. The flowers are deliciously fragrant. Burns alludes to this in the lines— zephyr wantoned round the bean, And bore its fragrant sweets alang." A field of beans perfumes the summer air for a considerable distance. The varieties and sub-varieties in cultivation are very numerous, differing in the size and form of the seed, the color of the flower, the period which they require for growth, the height, the stein in some unhranclied, in others divided at the base into a number of stalks—the pods in some mostly solitary, in others clustered, etc. The B. is cultivated both in fields and gardens, and the seeds (beans) are used for feeding cattle, also for making a sort of meal for human food, and in a green state are put into broths or boiled for the table. They are very nutritious, containing when ripe about 36 per cent of starch, and 23 per cent of legumine, a nitrogenous substance analogous to the caseine of milk. Whether for man or for cattle, however, they particularly require to be mixed with other food. The
straw is used for fodder, and is very nutritious when cut before it is fully ripe. The B. succeeds best on a dry and moderately rich soil. A well-drained clay is very suitable for it. Its tapering and deeply penetrating root unfits it for shallow soils. The varieties of B. preferred for the garden are generally much larger, both plant and seed, than those cultivated in the field. The Windsor B. has seeds of a flattened, almost cir cular shape, fully an inch in diameter; whilst those of the horse B., or tick B., culti vated as a field-crop, arc often not more than half an inch in length, and not quite three eighths of an inch in breadth. Garden-beans, in Britain. are usually sown in spring, in rows 2 ft. or more apart; and sowings are made at different dates, that there may be a succession of unripe beans for culinary use. The Windsor, Long Pod, and Early 3Iagazan are among the most approved garden varieties.
The roots of the B. are diuretic, and a decoction of them has been used with advan tage in cases of dropsy.
B. crops are very liable to be injured by a species of aphis (q.v.) _4. fake, sometimes called from its color the collier aphis, and sometimes the black dolphin fly, which destroys the leaves,and so renders the plants incapable of bringing the ordinary amount of seeds to perfection. The most effectual remedy known is to cut off the tops of the plants, which are always first attacked, as soon as the aphis appears, and so to prevent its multiplication. The topping of beans is regarded by many gardeners as a good prac tice, even when they are quite free of the aphis.
The kidney B. (q.v.), or haricot (phaseolus zulgaris), is an entirely different plant from the common bean.