THE PEA-WEEVIL: THE EGGS
Too Long; Didn't Read
Man holds the pea in high esteem. Ever since the days of antiquity, he has tried, by devoting greater and greater attention to its cultivation, to make it produce larger, tenderer, and sweeter varieties. The adaptable plant, gently entreated, has complied with his desires and has ended by giving us what the gardener’s ambition aimed at obtaining. How far we moderns have progressed beyond the crop of the Varros1 and Columellas,2 how far, above all, beyond the original peas, beyond the wild seeds confided to the soil by the first man who thought of scraping the earth, maybe with a jaw-bone of the Cave-bear,3 whose mighty canine did duty as a ploughshare!