Edible Products. 



530 



I June 1008. 



be depended upon. Growing pine-apples 

 to be sold at id. per lb. delivered at tbe 

 factory will pay the planter fairly well, 

 and will allow the factory to earn a 

 reasonable percentage on the invest- 

 ment. 



Sixteen thousand pine-apple plants can 

 be planted on one acre, and if the business 

 is properly managed, the field should 

 produce 80 per cent, fruit in from four- 

 teen to sixteen months. Each pine-apple 

 should average not less than 3 lb., and 

 if the grower is so fortunate as to have 

 a large local demand for his fruit, he 

 will not be under the necessity of going 

 to the expense of buying crates, wrapp- 

 ing jjaper, nails, and prepaying freight 

 on his shipments. The business of con- 

 signing fruit is not as satisfactory as it 

 should be. and the unfortunate planter 

 is compelled to submit to many an in- 

 justice ; but in Cuba and Florida, 75 per 

 cent, of the pine-apples and oranges are 

 sold for cash in the fields or in the groves 

 at a contract price, the buyer taking all 

 risk of shipment.— Bxdletiyi of the De- 

 partment of Agriculture, Jamaica, Vol. 

 VI, Part 1, January, 1908. 



PLANTAINS IN COSTA RICA. 



Costa Rica is now the premier plantain 

 or banana growing country of the world, 

 a fact which will be news to many. The 

 United Fruit Co. of Boston has 150,000 

 acres in plantains there. More than 400 

 steamer loads left Port Limon in lsJOO. 



Ed. 



THE POISONOUS PROPERTIES OF 

 THE BEANS OF PHASEOLUS 

 LUNATUS. 

 (Bonchi or Curry Bean.) 



By Professor Wyndham R. Dunstan, 



P.R.S., LL.D., AND T. A. HENRY, D.SC. 



In 1901 the Imperial Institute received 

 for investigation from the Director of 

 the Station Agronomique, Mauritius, 

 the beans of Phaseolus lunatus, a plant 

 grown in that island for use as a green 

 manure, the dark-coloured beans of 

 which had proved to be poisonous. It 

 was found on investigation that these 

 beans were capable of yielding consider- 

 able quantities of prussic acid, the origin 

 of which was traced to the presence of 

 a glucoside, to which the name phaseo- 

 lunatin was given, and a ferment, which 

 was able to decompose the glucoside with 

 the formation of prussic acid. 



A full account of this glucoside is given 

 in a paper communicated by us to the 

 Royal Society (Proceedings of the 

 Royal Soc, 1903, LXXII, 285). While 

 this work was in progress, samples of 

 beans known commercially as Paigya, 

 Rangoon, or Burma beans, which were 

 then being imported into this country 

 in large quantities, were sent to the 

 Imperial Institute for an opinion as to 

 their suitability as feeding stuffs by 

 various firms to whom consignments 

 had been offered. Two varieties of these 

 beans occur in commerce — the one pink, 

 with small purple splotches, and dis- 

 tinguished as "red beans," the other 

 pale cream in colour and known as ' ' white 

 beans." Numerous samples of the red 

 beans were received, and each of these on 

 examination was found to yield minute 

 quantities of prussic acid. Only one 

 sample of the white beans was received 

 at this time, and from that no prussic 

 acid could be obtained. 



The red and white Rangoon beans, 

 though as a rule lighter coloured, smaller 

 and less shrivelled than the Mauritius 

 beans, exhibited certain resemblances, 

 which indicated that they also are deriv- 

 ed from Phaseolus lunatus. Such marked 

 differences in colour as were shown by 

 the three varieties are well known to 

 occur in species of this genus, and from 

 information subsequently received from 

 India there appears to be no doubt that 

 these Rangoon, Burma or Paigya, beans 

 are produced by Phaseolus lunatus, the 

 beans of which have long been known 

 in India to be poisonous under some 

 circumstances. Other vernacular names 

 in use for these beans are "Lima" and 

 " Duffin," the former being in common 

 use in the United States. 



In view of the fact that the white 

 Rangoon beans examined at the Imperial 

 Institute yielded no prussic acid, at- 

 tempts were made to obtain the white 

 beans of Phaseolus lunatus grown in 

 other localities than India for compari- 

 son with them, and eventually " Haricots 

 de Lima," grown in the South of Fiance, 

 were obtained through a firm of seeds- 

 men in Paris. These were much larger 

 than either the Mauritius or Indian 

 beans and were cream white in colour. 

 They were examined and found to 

 furnish no pussic acid. 



These observations that the red Ran- 

 goon beans yielded traces of prussic acid, 

 and the white beans from two different 

 sources none, confirmed the statements 

 recorded by various authors that the 

 white beans of Phaseolus lunatus are 

 safer than the red kinds. Thus PVof esssor 

 Church, in his "Food Grains of India" 

 (p, 155), sayd:— "This is one of the 



