MUKDExN, THE AIANCHU HOME 



291 



the; late; e;mpre;ss dowage;r and some; oi'' he;r attendants 



to plant it in America, and wheat flour 

 is the food of kings. Along with the 

 banana, upon which we shall all be sup- 

 porting life in a few generations, and, 

 after the kaoliang or giant millet, beans 

 are the most prolific crop. Thirty varie- 

 ties of these soy beans grow in Manchu- 

 ria, but the black and the yellow are the 

 valuable oil-producing varieties. They 

 have always been sent by tons by junks 

 to south China for food, fertilizing, and 

 illuminating, and a little to Japan. After 

 the China- Japan war of 1895, when 

 the Japanese commissariat learned their 

 value for man and beast and crops, the 

 exportation to Japan increased three 

 times, replacing, fortunately, the failures 

 in the herring fishery that year as a fer- 

 tilizer. General export continued to 

 increase until, in 1899, beans, bean-cake, 

 and bean-oil were exported to the value 

 of $12,000,000, and in 1909 the value was 

 nearly $75,000,000. 



THE GREAT BOOM IN BEANS 



Tairen harbor was crowded all last 

 winter with waiting ships. One hundred 

 ships at a time lay at anchor waiting their 

 turns, ten at a time, at the stone quays, 

 and loading went on day and night. 



The beans, when ground and pressed, 

 yield 10 per cent of oil, and the refuse, 

 compressed into great cartwheel cakes 

 weighing 60 pounds and more, provides 

 the best of all fertilizers for the rice- 

 fields of Japan and the sugar-fields of 

 Formosa, the Philippines, and even Java. 

 The beans are converted into soy and 

 bean curd in both Japan and China, and 

 furnish those two popular articles of 

 food^ — soy, the dark brown, pungent 

 sauce resulting from a fermentation of 

 bean dough. This bean soy is sent to 

 England and America by the shipload, 

 and, when treated to cayenne pepper, be- 

 comes our familiar red-labeled Worcester 

 sauce. Bean curd, or bean cheese, is a 



