Bean, the seed of leguminous plants of three genera, faba, phaseolus, and dolichos, of which the faba vulgaris furnishes the different varieties of the common bean cultivated for food throughout the world. It originated in the East, is said to be still found wild in Persia, and has been known and cultivated in all ages. The French kidney bean (haricot) is the seed of the phaseolus vulgaris; and in India and South America species of dolichos are raised, such as. the sword bean of India (D. ensiformis) and the Lima bean (the latter extensively cultivated in the United States), and furnish an important item of food. The common bean is either a running vine, trained on frames, bushes, or poles, or a bushy shrub growing one or two feet high, and requires a rich, well prepared soil, which it does not exhaust, and in which it grows rapidly and luxuriantly. It bears a pod containing several oblong, rounded seeds, which are used when soft and green, or, when dry, ground into meal or softened by soaking in water and boiling or baking. Beans are highly nutritious, containing 84 per cent. of nutritious matter, while wheat has but 74 per cent. For horses this food is more nourishing than oats.

Baked beans are a healthful, strengthening, and favorite dish throughout the northern states, especially in rural regions; and in France and in the United States several varieties are cooked and eaten with the green pods, while French beans and pods are cut up and salted for winter use in Germany and Holland. The garden and field beans brought to market have a variety of names, among which the Lima, Windsor, dwarf, and kidney are favorites. - In ancient times beans were used as ballots, white for affirmative and black for negative. Ovid gives a description of an important ceremony, in which the master of a family, after washing his hands three times, throws black beans nine times over his head, with the words "I redeem myself and family by these beans." Pythagoras urged abstinence from beans, and the Egyptian priests considered the sight even of beans to be unclean. - The name bean is also applied to the fruit, berry, or product of such plants as the castor, coffee tree, tamarind, vanilla vine, and some others.

Bean (Faba vulgaris).