OILS 273 



mates. The most extensive plantings of soy beans are in 

 Japan, Korea, and Manchuria, but recently the plant has as- 

 sumed much greater importance in various tropical countries. 

 Soy beans contain from 15 to 22, per cent, of oil and yield 

 10 to 13 per cent, of oil by the ordinary commercial methods 

 of extraction. The oil is used in the Orient for food and light. 

 It is imported into the United States largely for use in soap 

 manufacture. The soy bean industry has assumed enormous 

 proportions in China and Japan on account of the oil, meal 

 cake, and soya sauce and other products. There are more 

 than 12,000 soya sauce factories in Japan alone and the soya 

 sauce factory follows the Japanese wherever they go. About 

 one-tenth of the arable land of Japan is devoted to the cultiva- 

 tion of soy beans. There are a great many varieties of soy 

 beans producing black, brown, yellow, mottled, and green seeds 

 and varying greatly in oil content. 



In the Orient, soy bean oil is largely used for human food 

 and has become an extremely important food product. It is 

 also employed in China for illuminating purposes and as a 

 substitute for linseed oil in paints. The use of soy bean oil 

 in manufacturing soap and as a machine lubricant is also 

 important. Recently the oil has entered quite widely into the 

 manufacture of margarine. 



Soy bean meal, or the ground cake obtained as a residue 

 from the oil factories, is well known to be an extremely valu- 

 able cattle food. Near the centers of production it is much 

 cheaper than cottonseed meal. A few cases have occurred 

 where poisonous effects were apparently produced from exces- 

 sive feeding with soy bean meal but the matter still remains 

 somewhat uncertain. In Japan, a number of other products 

 are prepared from soy beans. A product known as soy-bean 

 milk is made by soaking beans in water for 12 hours and 

 then pressing them between mill stones, after which the pow- 

 der is boiled with three times its bulk in water and filtered 

 through cloth. The product resembles milk in appearance 



