We import on the average about 20,000 quarters of beans, peas, &c., from Ireland, 450,000 quarters of beans and 200,000 quarters of peas from foreign countries.
The land under cultivation with pulse, and the crops raised, have been estimated as follows:—
| Acres. | Quarters. | |
| England | 500,000 | 1,875,000 |
| Ireland | 130,000 | 540,000 |
| Scotland | 50,000 | 150,000 |
| 680,000 | 2,565,000 |
This is of course exclusive of garden cultivation. The average produce of beans per acre in England is 3¾ quarters, 3½ in Ireland, and three in Scotland.
The price of beans per quarter in the last ten years has ranged from 39s. to 27s. the quarter; peas from 40s. 6d. to 27s. 6d.
Algaroba beans.—The seed pods or bean of the carob-tree (Ceratonia siliqua, or Prosopis pallida?) a tree common in the Levant and South of Europe, are used as food. The pods contain a large proportion of sweet fecula, and are frequently used by singers, being considered to improve the voice. The name of St. John's Head has been applied to them, from the supposition that they were the wild honey spoken of in Scripture as the food of John the Baptist. About 40,000 quintals of these carobs are annually exported from Crete. During the Peninsular war, the horses of our cavalry were principally fed upon these algaroba seeds. The pods of the West India locust tree, Hymenæa courbaril, also supply a nutritious matter.
That well known sauce, Soy, is made in some parts of the East, from a species of the Dolichos bean (Soja hispida), which grows in China and Japan. In Java it is procured from the Phaseolus radiatus. The beans are boiled soft, with wheat or barley of equal quantities, and left for three months to ferment; salt and water are then added, when the liquor is pressed and strained. Good soy is agreeable when a few years old; the Japan soy is superior to the Chinese. Large quantities are shipped for England and America. The Dolichos bean is much cultivated in Japan, where various culinary articles are prepared from it; but the principal are a sort of butter, termed mico, and a pickle called sooja.
1,108 piculs of soy were shipped from Canton in 1844, for London, British India, and Singapore. 100 jars, or about 50 gallons of soy, were received at Liverpool in 1850. The price is about 6s. per gallon in the London market.
THE SAGO PALMS, BREAD-FRUIT, &c.
Sago, and starchy matter allied to it, is obtained from many palms. It is contained in the cellular tissue of the stem, and is separated by bruising and elutriation. From the soft stem of Cycas circinalis, a kind of sago is produced in the East and West Indies. The finest is, however, procured from the stems of Sagus lævis (S. inermis, of Roxburgh), a native of Borneo and Sumatra; and Arenga saccharifera, or Gomutus saccharifus, of Rumphius. The Saguerus Rumphii, or Metroxylon Sagus, which is found in the Eastern Islands of the Indian Ocean, yields a feculent matter. After the starchy substance is washed out of the stems of these palms, it is then granulated so as to form sago. The last-mentioned palm also furnishes a large supply of sugar. Sago as well as sugar, and a kind of palm wine, are procured from Caryota urens.