the English name applied to the seed of several leguminous plants, but chiefly to those of the cultivated pea (Pisum sativum, Linn.), an annual plant, and a native of the south of Europe. It has been cultivated as a culinary vegetable from a very early period; but from the slight mention made of it by Pliny, it does not appear to have been valued so much by the Romans as by the Greeks, who prized it very highly, and cultivated it extensively. It is not known when the pea was first cultivated in Britain; but long after its introduction it was rare, and in the time of Elizabeth it was imported from Holland, probably in a ripe state. Dr Fuller, writing of peas at that time, said they were "fit dainties for ladies, they came so far and cost so dear." Either as a horticultural or as an agricultural product, the pea is a vegetable of great importance. The seeds in a green state are regarded as one of our most esteemed vegetables when boiled; and when ripe, are much used in forming a favourite and nutritious soup, acceptable to all classes. Those produced in fields are allowed to ripen, and are of great value in feeding swine; the haulm is also cut up with other kinds of fodder, and is much relished by cattle. The garden pea is often cultivated in fields near large towns, where the demand for it, as a green vegetable, is considerable; it is, however, a very distinct variety from the field pea.

Few vegetables have rewarded the care of the cultivator more than the garden pea, of which there are now at least fifty varieties, which have been produced by a careful hybridization of the following well-marked botanical varieties of the plant:—1. Var. a. saccharatum, having round distant seeds, with coriaceous pods, called Sugar Pea, and in France petits-pois and pois-sucres.—2. Var. b. macrocarpum, a strong-growing large kind, with flattened falcate-formed pods containing large and distant seeds. The most remarkable peculiarity of this variety is, that the legumes are destitute of the hard membrane with which others are lined, in consequence of which this sort is cooked and eaten in the pod. The French call it pois-gourmands, pois-sans-parchemin, and pois-mange-tout.—3. Var. c. umbellatum. The stipules in varieties a. and b. are entire and rounded, but in the present one they are quadrifid and acute. The peduncles are surmounted with a rather compact cluster of flowers; hence it is called in English Crown-Pea, and in French pois-a-bouquet. It has been suggested that this is a true species.—4. Var. d. quadratum. The seeds are of moderate size, and so closely packed in the legume that they become square when full grown. The French call it pois-carré.—5. Var. e. humile. A dwarf, weak-growing kind, with round seeds closely placed in the legume. The varieties raised from these are valued according to their hardiness and early bearing, the size and sweetness of the seeds, their abundant bearing, &c. They may be arranged in four groups: those which have yellow seeds round when ripe, and those which have square wrinkled seeds; those which have green seeds round when ripe, and those which have square and wrinkled ones. All the varieties of the true garden pea have white flowers; but the field pea has red and purple flowers, and the seed when ripe is of a yellowish-brown mottled colour. The pea, as an agricultural crop, is in favourable situations a very useful one, and is so soon off the ground that a crop of turnips can usually be realized after it. In England this crop is usually found most abundant in the midland counties.

Large quantities of peas are also imported in a ripe state. These are of the round and yellow kind, and are used chiefly for making soup. The quantity imported in 1857 was, in quarters,—from Denmark, 21,763; Prussia, 8265; Hanse Towns, 4870; Holland, 2630; Morocco, 9000; United States, 6200; British North America, 36,000; other parts, 2000;—the total value of which was nearly £200,000.