Williams news., 1914-02-26
History of the
 Bean at Last

but am kinda inclined to think was meant for an historian. The other day we had beans for dinner, a rather common article on our tab le, yet 1t became matter of inter- est to me, for I wondered if the his tory of the bean had ever been written or whether it had history Hence the following brief note on that popular article of diet.
 At the present time there are many tribes of beans from the red Mexican bean up to the fashionable Boston baked bean. But at remote ages beans were of one common tribe. We are aware that beans existed before history, perhaps in the reign of the ante deluvians Dr. Schliemann, the noted alchae- ologist found beans weighing 2O pounds while excavating in the iulllS Ol OLly Iiltt III ASld.
 The first legendary or traditional use of beans comes from the year 332 B. c. when Alexander the Great conquered the Paraohs. The great warrior tarried one day at an hum- ble house while some of his engi- neers made a map. He noticed pile of white, kidney shaped objects lying in heap in one corner of the room in which he was seated. They were large white ones and seemed about the size of an ordir.- ary 25 pound sack of meal. He asked what they were. They could not tell him so he commanded his men to load two camels with them. He then shipped them to his home in Greece. AS history tells us Alexander died while in Babylon and his wife had no instructions what to dc with the strange objects so they lay in dry store house for several years. No one could tell whether they were stone or some vegetables. At last the widow of the king decided to make some saurkraut. She had it put in a barrel, but could not find anything suitable to weight it down with so she piled on two or three of the Ebeans Alexander had sent home. In about two months the beans sprouted and grew When she saw this, she took the beans out and placed them in the parlor in water. There they remained a long time while throngs came to see the won derful plant that sprouted in the sauerkraut barrel.
 They began to wonder if it could be eaten so two neighboring women took bean apiece home to test out. One had half witted son whom she forced to eat some of the bean after three days cooking. The boy lived so she cautiously fed some of the other members of the family the new delicacy and they thr"ve. She lspread the ,es to the whole com munity and it was decided to plant the remaining beans. They grew and soon the new commodity be came. popular among all classes.
 The people of Bostcn learned of this centuries later and traced up the bean. They found that it had undergone many changes. They looked over the many different kinds and chose the navy bean for the famous roasting they were to give them. The first batch soured and not knowing the danger in eat ing sour beans they ate heartily of them. They nearly all died.
 | A Mexican, who wandered into
 Boston, took some of the seed to Mexico with him on his return. The climate was so hot that the beans turned red. The Mexican bean has been that way ever since
 Recently commission on diet for sick and convalesents, prescribed beans as the most nutritious of foods and highly recommended the use of beans in all hospitals.
 Here we have traced the history of the bean from a building stone