138 SOY BEANS IN BENGAL, BIHAR AND ORISSA. 



Also it has been pointed out already that the present price 

 of £7-5 per ton for the meal is only for meal as cattle food. If 

 success crowns the recent attempts to put the meal on the market 

 for biscuit and cake manufacture it is evident that the manu- 

 facturer will ask for more than £7-5 per ton for the fine meal. 



With the price of the coarsest wheat flour at £10 to £11 per 

 ton it may be assumed that the manufacturer will be justified in 

 asking for soy bean flour, which is much more nutritious, at 

 least £8 to £10 per ton. With the price at the lower figure 

 from 100 tons of seed the manufacturer would get 87 tons of 

 meal worth £696 and 13 tons of oil worth £390 or £1,086 worth 

 of manufactured products. In this way he would get nearly £11 

 per ton of seed which should allow him easily to pay the £9 per 

 ton in England required to bring the price up to £7 per ton or 

 Rs. 4 per maund in Calcutta. 



It will, therefore, be seen from what precedes that if the 

 growth of soy beans is to spread in India we must obtain 

 either : — 



(a) Higher prices from the manufacturers. 



(6) Higher yields of seedper acre and earlier ripening varieties. 



It would appear that neither of these conditions is impos- 

 sible, but it is uncertain whether either will be fulfilled. 



9. USES. 



Food-stuff :— In Bengal soy beans are used very little for food 

 as they are said to be too heat producing. It is usually taken after 

 frying over a heated sand bath as bhunja, but it is also heated, 

 crushed, and then used as dal, and also as larua mixed with guv. 



The high percentage of nitrogen and oil in this pulse should 

 make it a particularly valuable addition to a rice diet as a 

 preventative of beri-beri. That there are a number of other 

 ways of preparing soy beans for food in addition to those men- 

 tioned above can be seen from the following extracts from Shaw's 

 Soy Bean in Manchuria (10) which are quoted here at length for 

 the benefit of those desirous of experimenting with soy beans as 

 an article of diet. 



