With the larger cotyledon the crying disproportion between the number of eggs and the available provision disappears.
Moreover, it is indubitable that the bean is of earlier date than the pea.

Its exceptional size and its agreeable flavour would certainly have attracted the attention of man from the remotest periods.

The bean is a ready-made mouthful, and would be of the greatest value to the hungry tribe.

Primitive man would at an early date have sown it beside his wattled hut.

Coming from Central Asia by long stages, their wagons drawn by shaggy oxen and rolling on the circular discs cut from the trunks of trees, the early immigrants would have brought to our virgin land, first the bean, then the pea, and finally the cereal, that best of safeguards against famine.