Blessed Bean, consoler of the wretched, right well indeed do you fill the labourer, the honest, skilful worker who has drawn a low number in the crazy lottery of life.  Kindly Haricot, with three drops of oil and a dash of vinegar you were the favourite dish of my young years; and even now, in the evening of my days, you are welcome to my humble porringer.  We shall be friends to the last.

To-day it is not my intention to sing your merits; I wish simply to ask you a question, being curious:  What is the country of your origin?  Did you come from Central Asia with the broad bean and the pea?  Did you make part of that collection of seeds which the first pioneers of culture brought us from their gardens?  Were you known to antiquity?

Here the insect, an impartial and well-informed witness, answers:  “No; in our country antiquity was not acquainted with the haricot.  The precious vegetable came hither by the same road as the broad bean.  It is a foreigner, and of comparatively recent introduction into Europe.”

The reply of the insect merits serious examination, supported as it is by extremely plausible arguments.  Here are the facts.  For years attentive to matters agricultural, I had never seen haricots attacked by any insect whatever; not even by the Bruchidae, the licensed robbers of leguminous seeds.

On this point I have questioned my peasant neighbours.  They are men of the extremest vigilance in all that concerns their crops.  To steal their property is an abominable crime, swiftly discovered.  Moreover, the housewife, who individually examines all beans intended for the saucepan, would inevitably find the malefactor.

All those I have spoken to replied to my questions with a smile in which I read their lack of faith in my knowledge of insects.  “Sir,” they said, “you must know that there are never grubs in the haricot bean.  It is a blessed vegetable, respected by the weevil.  The pea, the broad bean, the vetch, and the chick-pea all have their vermin; but the haricot, lou gounflo-gus, never.  What should we do, poor folk as we are, if the Courcoussoun robbed us of it?”

The fact is that the weevil despises the haricot; a very curious dislike if we consider how industriously the other vegetables of the same family are attacked.  All, even the beggarly lentil, are eagerly exploited; whilst the haricot, so tempting both as to size and flavour, remains untouched.  It is incomprehensible.  Why should the Bruchus, which without hesitation passes from the excellent to the indifferent, and from the indifferent to the excellent, disdain this particularly toothsome seed?  It leaves the forest vetch for the pea, and the pea for the broad bean, as pleased with the small as with the large, yet the temptations of the haricot bean leave it indifferent.  Why?

Apparently because the haricot is unknown to it.  The other leguminous plants, whether native or of Oriental origin, have been familiar to it for centuries; it has tested their virtues year by year, and, confiding in the lessons of the past, it bases its forethought for the future upon ancient custom.  The haricot is avoided as a newcomer, whose merits it has not yet learned.