Bean
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Bean. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a name applied to various plants of the pea family. Bailey recognizes five types. 1. The broadbean of history, an erect plant with large flattened seeds. This sort is much grown in Europe for fodder and ensilage. The summers of the United States are too short and hot for it, though the broadbean is grown to some extent in eastern Canada for cattle. It is closely related to our handsome wild peas of the copse wood (vicia). Originally it is said to come from the Caspian region. 2. The kidney bean. This is the type usually meant by the American bean. The navy bean belongs to this variety. It includes our common American field, garden, soup, and string beans. Whether bush or climbing, this is the bean of commerce, and the "Boston baked bean." 3. The Lima bean. A tall pole bean with large flat seeds, really a member of the second group. 4. Slender beans. South American beans of a long, slender type in which we are little interested. 5. Soy beans. A Japanese or Chinese bean lately attracting attention in the United States as a forage plant. Beans are raised easily. As shiftless a man as Thoreau raised them at Walden Pond . To say that land is "too poor to raise beans," is to place a low estimate on its fertility. Harvesting, however, is another matter. Beans must be pulled and allowed to dry before they can be threshed. Many growers pile them up about stakes and protect from rain by a canvas cover. In continued dry weather they may be cured on the ground, but this method is risky. The bean crop of the United States is about 10,000,000 bushels. Michigan, New York , California, Maine, and Florida raise from 100,000 to 1,000,000 bushels each. In addition, about 19,000 acres are planted in green beans yielding a million and a half bushels of string beans for the market. It is stated that a dollar will buy more food in the shape of beans than in any other form. Sheep are fond of beans. See Pea ; Clover ; Weevil 2026 Editor's Note: Beans quietly feed the world as cheap protein, and they do the soil a favor the entry's farmers half-knew: their roots host bacteria that pull nitrogen from the air, fertilizing the ground — which is why Native Americans grew them in the ' Three Sisters ' beside corn and squash. Their gassy reputation is real too, caused by sugars the human gut cannot fully digest. (Ed: BR 2026-07-01)
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a well known cultivated plant, vicia faba, of Linnæus, now called faba vulgaris. It belongs to the order leguminose. The flowers, which are fragrant, are papilionaceous, white, with violet colored veins and blotches, looking almost black. The seeds are partly kidney- The native country of faba shaped. vulgari vulgaris is believed to be the regions near the Caspian n Sea, the Levant, and Egypt. Faba vulgaris may be primarily divided into the garden bean and the field bean. Of the former, there are numerous sub-varieties. The earliest is the mazagan, which is small seeded; while the largest is the windsor. The field bean runs into two leading subvarieties, a larger and a smaller one; the latter is called ticks. The horse bean is the variety equina. The word is also applied to any leguminous plant resembling a bean, though not of the genuine genus faba. Such, for example, as the Florida bean, which is the seed, not the fruit, of a West Indian plant. These seeds are washed up on the Florida shore, and are sometimes used as food, and sometimes they are polished and used as ornaments. The navy bean is the common white bean, used largely as an article of diet by sailors. The pea bean is a small white bean used commonly as food. The tonquin bean is the fragrant seed of a leguminous tree. In commerce, the word is applied to the seeds of certain plants belonging to the natural order leguminose. The common field bean is the seed of the faba vulgaris, the broad, or windsor bean, being a cultivated variety of the same plant. The French, or haricot bean, is the seed of phaseolus multiflorus, and the scarlet runner (which is closely akin to the former), is phaseolus vulgaris. Scarlet runners and French beans are used in the pod, in the green state, and eaten as a vegetable. Bean meal, which is more easily digested than whole beans, contains twice as much nitrogenous matter as wheat flour, and is more nutritious.