The Sun.
London, England, 1846-03-13 00:00:00

The great distinction between animal and vegetable
food seems to be the relative proportions of carbon and
nitrogen they respectively contain. The great bulk of
vegetables are comparatively scanty in nitrogen, while
some (as, for instance, the potato) is so destitute of this
principle, that, even when compared with the dry car-
bon, it only amounts to about half a cent. ; while, on
the other hand, some plants (as the leguminous, or bean
tribe) rival beef or mutton in the amount of azotised
matter they contain. The natural inference to be drawn
from this is so plain that it scarcely r, spires pointing
out. In the potato we have a substance so
deficient in the proper ingredients of the
blood, that, of itself, it is barely enough to
support human life ; while in the bean we
have all the principal ingredients of the blood, almost in
a state of purity, but which, nevertheless, is not perfectly
suited to the human constitution ; there is a want of that
very ingredient which tlri, potato contains in excess,
namely, carbon, and without which the heat of the
human frame could not be mait.taneti. Now, seeing
that by the constitution of things we cannot all get meat
to our potatoes, how would it do to mix these two sub-
strtece, seemingly created to supply the wants of each
other ? The process is simple, and ten result certain e as by
doing so. we have at once au amalgam suited to all the
wants of, the human constitution, and at an expense
vd-lich need not deter any one who can afford to cat at
all. Bat this will be more vividly seen by reference
to the following table, made up from the most recent,
and believed to be the most correct analpis of thefe
substances. For the sake of simplicity, and on account
of carbon and nitrogen being reckoned the principal in-
gredients necessary in building up animal structures, I
omit the others :

Carbon. Nitrogen.
Produce of 1 acre, say 25 bushcls of
beans.
„ 1 acre, say 132ibs of beef
„ 1 acre, say 6 tons of po-
tatoes . 712

281 81
66 19

It will thus be secn that an acre of land in beans not only
produces four times as much of these grand ingredients
in the animal organism, carbon and nitrogen, as an acre
under beef, but the relative proportions are so near to
that of beef that they may safely be set down as errors
in analysis or calculations. What waste, then, must it
be to gather up cur nitrogen through the aid of sheep
and cattle, while it can be so cheaply and handily done
by a crop of beans? Again, in reference to the above
table, we see that the nitrogen in beans is
something about the same ratio as in the flesh
of animals, and as we know from instinct
and experience that flesh requires something in
the shape of carbon to saturate the excess of nitrogen, so
as to make it agreeable and wholesome to the human
constitution, we have another beautiful provision of the
All•bountiful Preserver, in the beans--siven us, no doubt,
as " kitchen" for the rather watery and starch individual,
the potato. The excess of nitrogen in the bean is pro-
bably something about what will make up for the want
of nitrogen in the potato, after you deduct the share of
the potatoes usually allotted to the pig, and take in the
" drop" of butter-milk—that is, under these deductions
and additions, an acre of beans should saturate an acre
of potatoes, or rice versa.
None of our physiologists enter very minutely into
the question as to the proper mixture of carbon and ni-
trogen in human food. Liebig, that prince of physiolo-
gists, in one instance states as follows:—"Fifteen pounds
of flesh contain not more carbon than four pounds of
starch; and while the savage, with one animal and an
equal quantity of starch, could maintain life and health
for a certain number of days, he would be compelled, if
confined to flesh, in order to procure the carbon necessary
for respiration, to consume five such animals," Liebig, in
this paragraph, seems to infer that weight for weight
in flesh and starch is the proper mixture. Now, this
bears me out in .a remarkable manner ; as, granting that
flesh and 4 beans are almost identical in their two prin-
cipal elements (which no chemist doubts), the gross
weight of an acre of beans, say of 25 bushels, is
1,6001b5., which exactly covers the starch, sugar, &c.,
in an acre of potatoes carrying six tons—(see Profes-
sor Johnston's tables.)
We now come to another class of facts, which, on
the present generation, strike harder and sink deeper,
than the symbolic figures, atomic weights, and
sulphuric acid facts of the chemists. Who has
ever rode a bean fed horse for any distance but
has been charmed with his firmness under him, and
his life, spirit, and endurance on a journey ? Who but
has admired the springy step, the restlessnes and impa-
tience to get on, evinced in every muscle of his body ?
This is always in contradistinction to a grass or potato-
fed horse, as a general rule—for, no doubt, there are
horses as well as human beings that even beaus will not
put life in. Again, who has ever compared a piece of
bean-fed with a piece of potato-fed bacon ? The one is
like cutting up a sponge filled with train oil, while
the other is like slicing down lancewood or hickory.
The very butcher who " sticks" your pig will tell
you whether beans has been an ingredient in its
food. Marshall, a writer on rural economy, mentions
that the bean, where not fraudulently mixed (a very
pious fraud we should think) with baker's bread,
is principally given to horses, pigs, and other domestic
animals, in the midland counties of England, on account
of the spirit and sleekness it imparts to them. In regard
to pigs he states, that when fed on beans the meat be-
comes so hard that it makes but ordinary pork, but very
good bacon. Now these are qualities which, although
cpalaken of by the lower animals, few will be disposed toa
at in man. In fact, these qualities sit very grace-
fully on every grade of animated nature, and we should
like vastly to see •
a portion of them imparted to the
peasantry of the sister kingdom—as certainly the appear-
ance of a ship-load of Irish reapers, newly landed on our
shores, gives one an idea of anything but "sleekness."
The hardness also, in bean-fedork, is the very thing we
want. It is the loose fibrous texture of potato-fed meat,
whether in
rabl the horse, the pig, or the human being, that
is undesie.
Nature gives certain animals sharper instincts than
others, and wherever very special circumstances require
wanting.f
these extraordinary instincts, they are really
The pigeon is one of the swiftest and most enduring
winged animals, at least among the graminivora, ando
pro-
bably no living thing, bulk for bulk, expends so niuchforce throughout the day. His flight, whether for food
or play, is always at the top of his " bent." There is no
dallying in the case of the pigeon ; he flies always as if
for a wager. Now, every one knows the great predilection
pigeons have for the leguminous or azotised crops, and the
long and meteor-like flights they will take for this

their favourite food. We recollect once in our youth

sowing. peas in the grey of a March morning, and Beforethe first sheet was emptied we heard a whistling in the
air, and, on turning round, observed a flock of blue
pigeons doubling up their wings for their breakfast at
the end of the ridge where we had started. How they
got notice of the sowing is a mystery, but one thing is
certain, there was not a pigeon-cote within twenty miles
that could have supplied such a sample; neither do Ire--
collect even having seen pigeons traversing that district
of country, except at the time of sowing the peas, or
on the pea stubbles in autumn. At such a time let the
farmer go as early as lie likes to his bean or pea-field,
the pigeons will be there before him.
The use and cultivation of the. hem is said to have
originated in Egypt. The higher cleeses of the Egyp-
tians had a prejudice against the plant, which affords a
pretty strong presumptive proof that they would give it
to their servants and slaves ; and when we think of the
canals, the aqueducts, the sepulchres, and those most im-
mortal .3-F mortal things, the parymids of ancient Egypt,
it certainly does give one an extraordinary idea, of the
herculean influence of the bean
But it is not altogether from its nutritive qualities and
the singular adapt ition. of its constituent principles for
coalescing with those of the
potato, beauteous and h so as to make one
armoaions h le, that I would so