Of beans, a large number of different varieties are in common use including string-beans (or snap-beans), lima-beans, kidney-beans, red beans, the frijole, and the Soya bean. String-beans are exceedingly palatable, and are very much prized as an article of diet by the peoples of all countries. When gathered young and thoroughly cooked while still fresh they are exceedingly wholesome, and are very well assimilated, when properly chewed, by even those whose digestions are considerably impaired. The other beans named are generally eaten dry after having been removed from the pod in which they grow. When they are soaked in water until they become soft and then thoroughly cooked they make an excellent food, and, when not taken in too great quantities, are fairly digestible. When cooked with onions, parsley, and red pepper in proper proportions they make a very delicious dish. In Japan the Soya bean forms the basis for a kind of vegetable cheese which is eaten with rice, and furnishes the nitrogenous materials in which the latter is deficient. Peas are wholesome when young and fresh and when properly cooked, and as they come on in the early spring when other fresh vegetables cannot be obtained, they furnish a most acceptable addition to the dietary. When old, after their skins become tough, they cease to be digestible, and should not be eaten except in the form of purees, during the preparation of which the hull is removed. Lentils are scarcely eaten at all in America, but are much prized in some portions of the Old World, as the basis of soups. Peanuts belong to the group of legumes, though, unlike the others that serve as food, they grow beneath the surface of the ground. They are highly nutritious, but are, unfortunately, indigestible, owing largely to the high percentage of oil that they contain. The latter is extracted, and is sometimes sold as olive-oil; in a somewhat different form it is made into a sort of butter which is quite palatable.