STAPLE CROP OF CHINA

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 788, 8 October 1929, Page 15

STAPLE CROP OF CHINA

SOYA “BEANS BECOME FACTOR IN WORLD TRADE The exigencies of the political disruption between China and Russia in Manchuria have added importance to the Manchurian soya bean crop, foundation of the country’s economic structare, says a Mukden correspondent in a United States exchange. The harvest this year is expected to be the largest .in history. Last year the output aggregated about 5,500,000 tons, approximately 75 per j cent, of the total soya bean production of all China. The area planted this season is something more than 8,000,000 acres. Used in the manufacture of both food and explosives, the soya bean has a significant position in the present national emergency. The possibility of an increased industrial demand, however remote, has spurred producers to extraordinary efforts. Although a staple food in China for more than 4,000 years, the soya bean, “meat and milk” of the Orient, is one of the romances of modern science. For centuries it was made into a curd that took the place of meat and bread among the poor. A vegetable milk was pressed from the curd. It was not until 1910. when a shipment of 100 tons was sent to England, that j the soya bean became a factor in international trade. ( Since then scores of products have been developed. Credit for much of I the almost boom-like development and i prosperity of Manchuria is given to j the varied uses of the soya bean, i They include the manufacture of soya I and’other sauces, cheese, crackers, macaroni, flour, confections, glj-cerlne, j explosives, enamels, varnishes, butter j and lard substitutes, diabetic foods, I edible oils, salad oils, illuminating I and lubricating oils, water-proofing, ' materials, linoleum, paints, soap3> celluloid, rubber substitutes, printing inks, meal for cattle, coffee substitutes. baked beans, roasted beans, infants’ foods, soya bean butter and fertiliser. ... , Even the shell is utilised, charcoal being produced from it. The latest product is known as “brain tonic.” It was discovered by German scientists and developed by the Japanese in the central laboratory at Dairen. The tonic is being perfected as a medicine for underdeveloped children and for adults in exceptional cases. It resembles oldfashioned apple butter. I so important commercially has the j s oya bean become that the United | States lias been promoting a schedule iof its numerous uses. The American I acreage has increased steadily with I the bean used principally as forage i crops. . . j To find additional varieties, some of which will flourish in northern latj titudes, the Department of Agriculture 1 j las sent two specialists. P. H. Dori sett and W. J. Morse, to the Orient to i study the soya bean in its native land. I Now in Northern Japan they expect to reach Manchuria within a year.