There is another method, again, that is employed every where for adulterating it. They pick out the whitest and largest grains of wheat, and parboil them in earthen pots; these are then dried in the sun till they have regained their original size, after which they are lightly sprinkled with water, and then ground in a mill. A better granæum[246] is made from zea than from wheat, although it is nothing else, in fact, but a spurious alica: it is whitened by the addition of boiled milk, in place of chalk. CHAP. 30. (12.)—THE LEGUMINOUS PLANTS: THE BEAN. We now come to the history of the leguminous plants, among which the place of honour must be awarded to the bean;[247] indeed, some attempts have even been made to use it for bread. Bean meal is known as “lomentum;” and, as is the case with the meal of all leguminous plants, it adds considerably, when mixed with flour, to the weight of the bread. Beans are on sale at the present day for numerous purposes, and are employed for feeding cattle, and man more particularly. They are mixed, also, among most nations, with wheat,[248] and panic more particularly, either whole or lightly broken. In our ancient ceremonials, too, bean pottage[249] occupies its place in the religious services of the gods. Beans are mostly eaten together with other food, but it is generally thought that they dull the senses, and cause sleepless nights attended with dreams. Hence it is that the bean has been condemned[250] by Pythagoras; though, according to some, the reason for this denunciation was the belief which he entertained that the souls of the dead are enclosed in the bean: it is for this reason, too, that beans are used in the funereal banquets of the Parentalia.[251] According to Varro, it is for a similar cause that the Flamen abstains from eating beans: in addition to which, on the blossom of the bean, there are certain letters of ill omen to be found. There are some peculiar religious usages connected with the bean. It is the custom to bring home from the harvest a bean by way of auspice, which, from that circumstance, has the name of “referiva.”[252] In sales by public auction, too, it is thought lucky to include a bean in the lot for sale. It is a fact, too, that the bean is the only one among all the grains that fills out at the increase of the moon,[253] however much it may have been eaten away: it can never be thoroughly boiled in sea-water, or indeed any other water that is salt.