POPULAR SCIENCE 



THE SOYA-BEAN PROBLEM 



By DOROTHY MARGARET ADKINS, B.Sc, 

 Royal Holloway College, London. 



The remarkable characters of the soya-bean, and the new light 

 that recent research has shed on its properties, seem to render 

 a wider recognition of its economic value desirable. It is a 

 plant that has been a staple article of industry for thousands of 

 years in China, and has during the last fifty years been shown 

 by modern methods of research to possess a supply of accessory 

 food factors and exceptionally valuable protein ; on account of 

 these and other properties, it has recently obtained an increas- 

 ingly important position in 'American agriculture and industry. 

 It is with the hope of reviewing our present position with 

 regard to this plant that the following outline has been drawn up. 



The soya-bean. Glycine hispida, is an erect annual with 

 branching hairy stems and trifoliate leaves. The flowers are 

 pale lilac or violet ; the seeds may be yellow, green, brown, or 

 black, and are elliptical or spherical in shape. Under favourable 

 conditions the plant attains a height of four feet, and may pro- 

 duce as many as two hundred pods, although the average 

 number per plant is nearer forty. The flowers are self-pollin- 

 ated, thus the yield is entirely independent of insects. Like all 

 leguminous plants, the soya-bean increases the fertility of the 

 soil owing to bacterial tubercles on its roots ; it has been 

 demonstrated that only when a large number of nodules is 

 present can the plant reach its full development. Thus when 

 seeds are sown on soil sterile with regard to the soya-bean 

 bacillus, inoculation is necessary for the production of a good 

 crop. 



The soya-bean is indigenous to China, Manchuria, Korea, 

 Japan, and Indo-China ; the Annals of Old China record its exten- 

 sive cultivation and use five thousand years ago, and its pro- 

 ducts still form one of China's most important exports. During 

 the nineteenth century the soya-bean was introduced into 

 America and Europe : in the United States it gained prominence 

 as a forage crop, and has recently been grown on a large scale for 

 seed ; its introduction into agriculture in Europe has, however, 

 never become established. 



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