422 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Ocr., 1901. 
starches at present consumed for food. As an experiment, a chemist at Lis- 
more once made 40 lb. of starch from the beans, which he sold at 4d. per Ib. | 
Opossums are fond of the beans. Stockowners have long waged war against 
the tree owing to the belief that cattle and horses are poisoned through eating 
the seeds. They are not, however, a poison in the strict sense of the term, 
since no alkaloid or poisonous principle can be found in them. They have 
frequently been examined by chemists, and Mr. W. M. Hamlet, Government 
Analyst, has reported on the subject to this department with negative results 
(Annual Report of Department of Mines, New South Wales, 1886, p. 46). 
All the same, the beans kill the stock owing to their highly indigestible 
character, the indigestible portion in time forming a ball in the stomach. 
Following are some interesting notes in regard to bean-poisoning on the 
Richmond River :—‘ 1883 was a dry season, and grass scarce. informed 
me that he had lost over 100 head of cattle by bean poisoning. Next day 
my attention was drawn to a few cattle in a stockyard said to be poisoned b 
eating beans. I inquired of the stockman if he had any pl that they had 
eaten beans, when he pointed to a beast that had died the day before, and 
beans had been taken from its stomach. In reply to my questions he said he 
expected some of the cattle in the yard to recover. They appeared much 
urged, discharging thin watery focal matter. . lost a valuable entire 
hore and cattle in this way, and many others have similar experience. It 
appears to affect horses in a different way to cattle. informed me that 
while removing horses from a paddock in which the bean-tree was growing 
two of them died without previously showing any symptoms of poisoning, 
The seeds are also rapidly fatal to pigs in some cases, probably when devoured 
on an empty stomach.” 
Asa fine cluster of these bean-trees grows on the banks of the Lockyer 
Creek, in one of the paddocks of the Agricultural College, which cluster, 
however, was fenced off to keep the cattle from getting at the beans, IT had a 
good opportunity to get a large sample of fresh seeds for analysis. I also 
obtained easily a very good sample of starch from the seeds, and I have no 
doubt that in the neighbourhood of large clusters of these trees starch could be 
obtained in payable quantities. 
For the analysis I prepared the beans by shredding them roughly into thin 
slices, and determining the moisture in a fresh sample of these slices. The 
bulk of the sliced seeds was left exposed to the air to dry spomaneously. This 
air-dried sample was ground into a fairly fine flour (all passing through a sieve 
with thirty meshes to the inch), and this prepared flour was used for the 
exhaustive analysis, calculating the composition of the fresh seeds from the 
analysis of the air-dried flour. 
‘The tabulated result of this analysis is as follows :— 
Air-dried Fresh 
Flour. Bean. 
Per cent. Per cent, 
Water... re, oes omy “io acto cis ORES: 55°76 
Hates: om soe cca: Bits gs ew 1:06 0°52 
Chlorophyll He ae ax. nix .. 0°39 O17 
Albuminoids, soluble in water Hy ey! xy el 2°68 
Do. do. do., coagulated when boiling 1°18 059 
Do. insoluble, Legumin ... oon po APE! 2-20 
Glucoside, Saponin ... “433 0 om w. 1458 7-23 
Starch _ of an 2s ier .. 38754 18:59 
Mucilaginous substances... rex a ape BFE) 157 
Dextrin at “es ks ea cx: ee 4398 2-47 
Glucose ax) mu! wr: ay, oth oo WHE 0°32 
Woody fibre ... an as att 53 xy HY) 396 
Crudeash ... eg og = eal 1:09 
Undetermined extr. matter, colouring matter, 
organic acids, pectin, &c., by differ. ... Pr s/2 2°88 
