2 BULLETIN 439j U. S, DEPAETMENT OF AGEICULTURE. 



such large proportions that the soy bean has become an important 

 competitor of other oil seeds. 



As early as December, 1915, several American cotton-oil mills had 

 turned to the soy bean as a source of oil and meal on account of the 

 scarcity and high price of cottonseed.^ Other manufacturers are pre- 

 paring soy-bean products for human food. This utilization of American- 

 grown beans for the manufacture of oil, cake, and other products will 

 undoubtedly greatly stimulate the culture of the crop, which until now 

 has been grown in the United States primarily for forage. 



Fig. 1. — A fleet of junks engaged in carrying soy beans to Newchwang, Manchuria, from different points 

 in the interior, taking away bean oil and bean cake to other places. (Photographed by F. N. Meyer.) 



SOY BEANS IN MANCHURIA. 



The soy bean is grown in nearly all parts of Manchuria where 

 agriculture is conducted except in the extreme north. The beans, 

 together with their products — bean cake and oil — form the chief 

 exports (fig. 1). The soy bean is always rehed upon by the Man- 

 churian farmer as a cash crop and constitutes a staple product of 

 Manchurian agriculture. 



The conditions under which the soy bean thrives are said to be 

 far more varied in Manchuria than in the United States. It is grown 



1 The average market price of cottonseed in the cotton-producing States during the past three years is 

 shownby the following figures, furnished by the Bureau of Crop Estimates: September 15, 1914, $13.88 

 per ton; September 15, 1915, S20.98 per ton; September 15, 1916, S41.13 per toi;i. 



