L E N L E N 447 authority, but the number does not seem to have been taken quite literally. In one of the homilies (In Evany., xvi.) of Gregory the Great, the precise number is fixed as by Cassianus at thirty-six, but this figure is obtained by reckoning from the sixth Sunday before Easter and deduct ing Sundays only. In the Corpus Juris Canonici this passage is reproduced, but with an important change which must have been made before the end of the 8th century ; it is to the effect that, in order to make up the sacred number of forty days dedicated to fasting by our Lord, it is necessary to take in as fasts the four days preceding Quadragesima Sunday. As regards the manner of observing Lent, various degrees of strictness have prevailed in the church. Perfect abstinence from all food every fasting day until evening is in theory at least required, and it has also been considered desirable that public worship with sermon should be attended daily, with frequent communion, especially on Saturday and Sunday ; public amusements, especially stage plays, are prohibited, and the celebration of religious festivals, as also of birthdays and marriages, is held to be unsuitable ; and increased diligence in almsgiving and deeds of charity is enjoined. LENTIL, the seed of Lens csculenta, Munch, a small annual of the vetch tribe. The plant varies from 6 to 18 inches in height, and has many long ascending branches. The leaves are alternate, with six pairs of oblong-linear, obtuse, mucronate leaflets. The flowers, two to four in number, are of a pale blue colour, and are borne in the axils of the leaves, on a slender footstalk equalling the leaves in length ; they are produced in June or early in July. The pods are about J inch long, broadly oblong, slightly inflated, and contain two seeds, which are of the shape of a doubly convex lens, and about J inch in diameter. There are several cultivated varieties of the plant, differing in size, hairiness, and colour of the leaves, flowers, and seeds. The last may be more or less compressed in shape, and in colour may vary from yellow or grey to dark brown ; they are also sometimes mottled or speckled. In English commerce two kinds only of lentils are principally met with, viz., the French and the Egyptian. The former are usually vended entire, and are of an ash-grey colour externally and of a yellow tint within ; the latter are usually sold like split peas, without the seed coat, and consist of the reddish- yellow cotyledons, which are smaller and rounder than those of the French lentil ; the seed coat when present is of a dark brown colour. Egyptian lentils are chiefly imported from Alexandria. In 1880 there were shipped from that port 25,000 ardebs, or 17,000 quarters, of red lentils, valued at .25,000, of which amount 80 per cent, was taken by Great Britain. Considerable quantities of lentils are also imported into the United States, but are chiefly consumed by the Germans, with whom lentil soup is a favourite dish. The native country of the lentil is not known, although it is supposed to be indigenous to the Himalayas. It was probably one of the first plants brought under cultivation by mankind. The name adas (Heb. trij?) appears to be an original Semitic word, and the red pottage of lentils for which Esau sold his birthright (Gen. xxv. 34) was apparently made from the red Egyptian lentil. This lentil is cultivated in one or other variety in India, Persia, Syria, Egypt, Nubia, and North Africa, and in Europe, along the coast of the Mediterranean, and as far north as Germany, Holland, and France. According to Shaw, Travels in Barlary, lentils are dressed in that country in the same manner as beans ; and in Egypt and Syria the parched seeds are exposed for sale in shops, and esteemed the best food to carry on long journeys. Lentils form a chief ingredient in the Spanish puchcro, and are used in a similar way in France and other countries. For this purpose they are usually sold in the shelled state. The reddish variety of the lentil ("lentillon d hiver ") is the kind most esteemed in Paris on account of the superior flavour of its smaller seeds. It is sown in autumn either with a cereal crop er alone, and is cultivated chiefly in the north and east of France. The large or common variety, "lentille large blonde," cultivated in Lorraine and at Gallardon (Eure-et-Loir), and largely in Ger many, is the most productive, but is less esteemed. This kind has very small whitish flowers, two or rarely three on a footstalk, and the pods are generally one-seeded, the seeds being of a whitish or cream colour, about f of an inch broad and ^ inch thick. A single plant produces from 100 to 150 pods, which are flattened, about | inch long and i inch broad. Another variety, with seeds similar in form and colour to the last, but of much smaller size, is known as the "lentillon de Mars." It is sown in spring. This variety and the "lentille large" are both sometimes called the "lentille a la reine." A small variety, "lentille verte du Puy," cultivated chiefly in the departments of Haute Loire and Cantal", is also grown as a vegetable and for forage. The Egyptian lentil was introduced into Britain in 1820. It has blue flowers. Another species of lentil, E. monanthos, L., is grown in France about Orleans and elsewhere under the name of "jarosse" and "jarande." It is, according to M. Yilmorin, one of the best kinds of green food to grow on a poor dry sandy soil ; on calcareous soil it does not succeed so well. It is usually sown in autumn with a little rye or winter oats, at the rate of a hectolitre to a hectare. The lentil also prefers a light warm sandy soil ; on rich land it runs to leaf and produces but few pods. The seeds are sown in March or April or early in May, according to the climate of the country, as they cannot endure night frosts. If for fodder they are sown broad cast, but in drills if the ripe seeds are required. The pods are gathered in August or September, as soon as they begin to turn brown, the plants being pulled up like flax while the foliage is still green, and on a dry day lest the pods split in drying and loss of seed takes place. Lentils keep best in the husk so far as flavour is concerned, and will keep good in this way for two years either for sowing or for food. An acre of ground yields on an average about 11 cwt. of seed and 30 cwt. of straw. The amount and character of the mineral matter requisite in the soil may be judged from the analysis of the ash, which in the seeds has as its chief ingredients potash 34 6 per cent., soda 9 5, lime 6 3, phosphoric acid 36 2, chloride of sodium 7 "6, while in the straw the percentages are potash 10 S, lime 52 3, silica 17 6, phosphoric acid 12 3, chloride of sodium 2 1. Lentils have recently attracted some notice among vegetarians as a food material. A Hindoo proverb says, "Rice is good, but lentils are my life." But in England they have been reputed difficult of digestion and apt to disorder the bowels and injure the sight. The husk of the seed is certainly indigestible, and to cook lentils properly requires at least two and a half hours, bur undoubtedly they are richer in nutritious matter than almost any other kind of pulse, containing, according to Payen s analysis, 25 - 2 per cent, of nitrogenous matter (legumin), 56 per cent, of starch, and 2 6 per cent, of fatty matter. Fresenius s analysis differs in giving only 35 per cent, of starch; Einhoff gives 32 81 of starch and 37 82 per cent, of nitrogenous matter. Lentils are more properly the food of the poor in all countries where they are grown, and have often been spurned when better food could be obtained, hence the proverb "Dives factus jam desiit gaudere lente." The seeds are said to be good for pigeons, or mixed in a ground state with potatoes or barley for fattening pigs. The herbage is highly esteemed as green food for stickling ewes and all kinds of cattle (being said to increase the yield of milk), also for calves and lambs. Halhr says that lentils are so flatulent as to kill horses. They were also believed to be the cause of severe scrofulous disorders common in Egypt. This bad reputation may possibly be due to the sub stitution of the seeds of the bitter vetch or tare lentil, Erruin Ervilia, L., a plant which closely resembles the true lentil in height, habit, flower, and pod, but whose seeds are without doubt possessed of deleterious properties producing weakness, or, accord ing to Lindley, even paralysis of the extremities in horses which have partaken of them. A few years ago some cases of poisoning of pigs were traced by Mr W. Southall of Birmingham to the use of the seed of this plant in their food ; it had been imported from Turkey under the name of rovi, and was sold in England under the name of Egyptian pease. The chief symptom produced was severe vomiting, followed by speedy death. The poisonous principle seems to reside chiefly in the bitter seed coat, and can apparently be removed by steeping in water, since Gerard, speaking of the " bitter vetch " (Errum Ervilia}, says " kine in Asia and in most other countries do eat thereof, being made sweet by steeping in water." The seed of Emim Ervilia is about the same size and almost exactly of the same reddish-brown colour as that of the Egyptian lentil, and when the seed coat is re moved they are both of the same orange red hue, but the former is not so bright as the latter. The shape is the best means of dis tinguishing the two seeds, that of E. Ervilia being obtusely tri angular.
