SOYA

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2688, 7 February 1916, Page 3

SOYA

— — —» . THE GOLDEN BEAN THAT GERMANY . WANTS If .Germany is being allowed to import soya beans, she is getting food for per men, her cattle, and her guns, says "T.C." in the London "Daily 'Mail." No country more than Germany appreciates the value of this wonderful golden bean, whoso introduction to Europe from China forms the greatest trade romance of the present century. Less than eight years ago Europe knew practically nothing of the soya bean or'its' remarkable nutritious qualities and the uses to'which it could be put. 'For over 2000 years the Chinese, cultivating plant chiefly on the plains of Manchuria, had kept it to themselves. • Dictionaries still dismiss it with a sentence as "an Asiatic leguminous herb, tlio seeds of which are used in preparing the sauce called soy." The 'war with Russia brought the Japaneso in closer i&ucE with the areas where the bean is cultivated. They realised }ts value and possibilities, and in 1908 > firm of exporters in Japan sent a trial consignment to England. Our experts on vegetable oils were Impressed. Orders immediately followed, and tie soya bean "boom" began. It produced in Europe what has been described as a commercial revolution. Every country of importance became deeply interested. Quick fortunes were •maue by pioneers. The exports from China rose rapidly, and now the bean is second on the list of China's exports, with a value approaching £8,000,000. Russia and Japan, whose railway systems serve the bean districts, are chiefly concerned in the work and organisation of export. The soya bean survived the "boom." It justified most of the flattering things said about it. Its fame spread far and wide. Many tons were exported to Hull, •where a factory and oil presses were established, and a very important export trade to the Continent was built Up. Our agricultural colleges experimented with the bean products as food for cattle and pigs ; Sweden set .her experts at work and discovered that bean cake was a highly satisfactory food'for milch cows; Denmark followed and built a large factory at Copenhagen to deal with the export from Vladivostok; the' South African Government Trades Commissioner, convinced of the great future of the soya bean industry, urged the competition of South African farmers with the bean growers of Manchuria. In ■ Paris a factory was huilfc by a Chinese firm. . German Thoroughness. And what did Germany do? With customary thoroughness she got Germans on the spot to find out all there was to be found out about the bean and its food and trade values. She sent them to Changehtm, the great dis- . .tributingj centre for the bean in Manchuria.'. Already German houses were .well established there with a greater share than •_ the British in the general import .trade. _ It was not long before the Huns decided to adopt tho friendliest attitude towards the soya bean, and in 1912 Germany rescinded the import duty and installed soya beau plant in her oil mills, importing the beans through Vladivostock, often in British bottoms chartered for the purpose. The secret of the soya bean is its universal,usefulness: Almost more remarkable than the rise of the bean trade itself is the crop of discoveries of the uses to which' - it can'be"! put. The Trades Commissioner for the Government of South Africa in 1912 gave the following. list of soya bean, products: —

Vegetable - (like marrowfat jeas), Boups, meat substitute, chocolate substitute, macaroni preparation, flour, artificial milk, cheese, coffee substitute, artificial horn, biscuits and food for diabetes patients, sauce, meal for cattle, oil, oilcake, fertiliser, beancake. -

The oil extracted from the soya bean, ha pointed out, was used in the manufacture of the following articles:— Dynamite and high explosives, soaps, linoleum, rubber "substitute, margarine, paints, varnishes, toilet powder,' waterproof cloth, paper umbrellas and lanterns, salad oil, lubricating oil, lamp oil, preserving sardines, lard substitute, ii. r ?, qu ! res imagination to appreciate that all these commodities are the product of one hardy plant from far Manchuria "which was first commercially introduced to Europe. seven years ago. Small wonder that the Kaiser's men and pigs and guns ihave a welcome for tlie little yellow bean even more hearty perhaps than for copra. The pod 'is about two inches in length and the plant has an erect stem two to three feet high. There are three main varieties of the bean, yellow (huang ton), green (ching ton), and black (wu ton). The yellow contains more nutritive ingredients than the others, and the bean exported is almost exclusively yellow.

The quantity of oil extracted varies from 16 per cent-, to 19 per cent.

Romantic Beanstalk. Twenty-five per cent, of the cultivated' area in Manchuria is given up to the bean, and the town of Cliangchun owes its prosperity to tiho trade an dt.lie Japanese mho have had the enterprise to develop it. Hero at Changchun the Russian and Japanese railway systems meet, the Russian trade going north to Harbin and Vladivostok and the Japanese south to Dairen. On these two routes 70 per cent, of tlie beans produced are exported. To Ohangdinm come the caravans of carts loaded with beans from all parts of Manchuria for salo to the brokers.

Writing in his book oil Japan of his .visit to tho bean centres of Manchuria, Mr. Robert 1\ Porter says: "Only alter one has travelled through the region where the soya bean reigns supreme and has seen the wharves and the warehouses, the stations and the platforms, laden with bags of beans, and noted the thousands of queer-looking stacks with pagoda-liko roofs with wbioh the country is dotted and which serve as temporary storehouses for the produce while awaiting shipment, does one realise that it (the growth of the bean trade) is not a fable but a veritable fact in the history of internationa) commerce. ... And the manifold uses, agricultural and industrial, as well as dietary, to which the bean can be put invest this generous vegetable'with increasing importance and the future of the bean crop with romantic mystery." Quite a literature is springing up about the soya bean, and m years to come when our fairy .tales are revised wo shall surely read that Jack's marvellous beanstalk grew from the soya bean.