OIL BEARING SEEDS AND THEIR BY-PRODUCTS 179 



has been expressed). While pure old-process linseed meal usually con- 

 tains over 32 per ct. protein, the protein content of these products is as 

 low as 30 per ct. Such feeds may contain 28 per ct. by weight of screen- 

 ings oil feed. To comply with feeding stuff laws and yet mislead the 

 unwary purchaser, such products are sometimes branded in large letters 

 " oil-process linseed meal" with some such statement below in much 

 smaller letters as ' ' and screenings oil feed. ' ' Not infrequently these in- 

 ferior products have been sold for substantially as high a price as pure 

 linseed meal. Recently considerable Argentine flax seed has been im- 

 ported into the United States, which at least in some seasons apparently 

 contains less protein than the seed produced in this country. Meal from 

 this seed is often guaranteed to contain but 30 to 31 per ct. crude protein. 

 While such meal is an entirely satisfactory feed, it is of course worth 

 proportionately less than the higher grade meal. 



Unscreened flax oil-feed, or ' ' laxo ' ' cake, meal, is obtained in extracting 

 the oil from unscreened flax seed. The value is lower than that of linseed 

 meal, depending on the proportion of screenings present. 



Flax feed, or flax screenings, is chiefly used in certain mixed feeds. 

 It is sometimes sold as flax flakes, or under the misleading name *' lino- 

 meal.^ The composition and value vary widely, depending on the pro- 

 portion present of low-grade flax seeds and weed seeds and of such trash as 

 stalks, pods, and leaves. It is rarely an economical feed at the prices 

 asked. 27 



Flax plant by-product, sometimes incorrectly called "flax bran/' con- 

 sists of flax pods, broken and immature flax seeds, and the bark and 

 other portions of the stems. It is chiefly used in certain proprietary 

 feeds. Smith of the Massachusetts Station 28 concludes that such material 

 is not worth to the Massachusetts farmer the cost of the freight from the 

 states where it is produced. 



256. Soybean. The soybean, Glycine hispida, is one of the most im- 

 portant agricultural plants of northern China and Japan. So great is 

 the production of this seed in Manchuria that before the World War 

 1,500,000 tons of soybeans were exported in a year, chiefly to Europe. 

 The bean-like seeds of the soybean, which carry from 16 to 21 per ct. 

 of oil, are used for human food and for feeding animals. The oil is used 

 for human food and in the arts, and the resulting soybean oil meal is 

 employed as a feed for animals and for fertilizing the land, the same as 

 cottonseed meal. This plant produces the largest yield of seed of any 

 legume suited to temperate climates, but at the present time is grown in 

 this country chiefly for forage. Soybeans are adapted to the. same range 

 of climate as corn, early varieties having been developed that ripen seed 

 wherever corn will mature. On account of their resistance to drought 

 they are especially well suited to light, sandy soils. When grown for seed 

 the yield commonly varies from 12 to 40 bushels per acre, equaling corn 

 on poor soil in the Gulf states. 



"Mass. Buls. 128, 132; Vt. Buls. 104, 133, 144. "Mass. Bui. 136. 



