1 Noy., 1902.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 321 
THE MADAGASCAR BHAN. 
This valuable pulse, known also as the Horticultural Lima Bean (Phaseolus 
lunatus, yar. inamenus), 1s well known in this State, and is deserving of much 
more extensive cultivation than it receives at present, as it is a most valuable 
vegetable—the seeds, used either in their dried state or green, forming a very 
palatable and highly nutritious food. The unripe beans are cooked in a similar 
manner to broad beans, but the dried beans require soaking for twenty-four 
hours previous to use. They are infinitely superior in flavour to broad beans 
and are far more prolific. Some people use the young immature pod as French 
beans, but the unripe seeds are a much better vegetable. The beans are similar 
in shape and size to the common Lima, but, instead of being white like that 
variety, they are mottled, brownish-mahogany, dirty white, spotted with 
brownish-mahogany. If planted in November they will bear in May or June. 
They should be grown on a strong trellis if a crop of seed is desired. As a 
green manure crop they also have great value. 
Another variety, the Dolichos Lablab, var. purpurens, sometimes called the 
Tonga bean, is a very prolific fruiter, but is more adapted for green manuring 
than for the table. The flower, stems, and pods are of a purplish colour, and 
the beans are roundish-oval, having a prominent white keel, by which they are 
attached to the pod, and are of a darkish-brown colour. 
Mr. H. C. Quodling, manager of the Hermitage State Farm, has a certain 
quantity of the Madagascar bean seed for distribution in small quantities. Very 
few seeds will give a large return. We strongly advise farmers to obtain 
some of the seed, and once they have discovered the value of the bean as a 
vegetable they will never be without it. Last year we grew six plants, and 
these supplied us with large quantities of seed which, boiled green, proved an 
excellent vegetable. We do not advise treating the young pods as French 
beans. An advertisement in this number of the Journal gives particulars 
concerning the seed for distribution at the Hermitage. 
THE BREAST-PLOUGH. 
Mr. George Iles, Woombye, writes :—On opening my Journal last night 
I was deeply interested to see the picture of the man planting his potatoes with 
the breast-plough ; and, on reading the reprint from the Mark Lane Express, 
I was greatly amused. Considerably less than half seventy years ago I can 
remember the breast-plough being in general use, but not in the manner mentioned 
in the article. Breast-ploughing and burning were considered the best means 
of getting the foul, couchy land ready for a crop, by the following method :— 
In open weather, in the winter, the horse teams ‘‘ baulk-ploughed” it—that is, 
took a furrow about 12 inches wide, the share being set to cut 6 or 7 inches, 
and turning the cut part on top of the “ baulk,” or uncut part. This done, the 
field was let to labourers to breast-plough and burn at from 12s. to 15s. per 
acre, the farmer harrowing and working the turf when turned over by the 
breast-plough, the man and his family doing the burning and spreading the 
ashes. Twenty-six or twenty-seven years ago, as a child, 1 was helping my 
father at burning. On asking why the horses did not plough all the ground, 
he said the land would lie too close together, but by baulking it the sod is left 
open to the frost and wind, as when the breast-plough turns it the furrow is still 
wrapped together, though broken, and the harrows tear it to pieces. Since I can 
remember, the broad share was used more than the breast-plough to cut the baulks 
with the horse team. They were lively times in those days when there was a dry 
spell in the spring. There would be, perhaps, five or six men and their families, 
