The Richest Food in the World 



Solving the food problem with the Soya Bean 

 By Hudson Maxim 



Hudson Maxim is the inventor of smokeless powders used by the United States army and 

 navy. He is America's foremost authority on high explosives. As a member of the 

 Naval Consulting Board, he has given up much of his time to the consideration of war 

 inventions. The food problem seems to him the most important of all, and here he 

 suggests a method of using the Chinese soya bean in solving that problem. — Editor 



IN my book, "De- 

 fenseless Amer- 

 ica," published 

 three years ago, I 

 called attention to 

 the defenselessness 

 of this country, but 

 in that book I 

 dealt mainly \vith 

 our lack of prepara- 

 tion in respect of 

 fighting men, fight- 

 ing ships, and all 

 the munitions and 

 military equipment 

 of war. All my con- 

 clusions in that 

 book have been most emphatically veri- 

 fied by results since our entrance into the 

 present war. 



But there was one very important phase 

 of our unpreparedness for war which I did 

 not mention and that was the food prob- 

 lem. The provision and distribution of 

 food has proved to be one of 

 the main problems of the 

 war, and the solution seems 

 farther off than ever. 

 Present tendencies indicate 

 that the time is near when 

 the production and proper 

 disposition of food to our 

 own people, to our Allies 

 and armies over-seas will be 

 the most baffling task which 

 we shall have to accom- 

 plish. 



The food problem is a 

 three-in-one problem — 

 first its growing, second its 

 transportation, third its con- 

 sumption. 



There is enormous acre- 

 age in the United States, 

 not at present profitably 



Hudson Maxim is now turning his atten- 

 tion from explosives to the study of foods 



employed, which 

 can be devoted to 

 raising some of the 

 most nourishing 

 and valuable of 

 foods, provided 

 that the market 

 price and means of 

 transportation were 

 such as to make the 

 work profitable to 

 the farmer. 

 Throughout the 

 South, especially, 

 are large areas 

 which have been 

 abandoned because 

 of the cotton boll-weevil. These areas 

 could be very profitably employed in rais- 

 ing a great variety of foods not at present 

 cultivated to the extent which they ought 

 to be raised. Among these the principal 

 is the Chinese soya bean, a food which is 

 so rich in fat and protein as to outclass 



Here we see the soya bean being handled in quantity in 

 its native country. Note the peculiar topped baskets 



080 



