26 BULLETIN 769, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
varieties produced from 15 to 32.5 bushels per acre. The yield of 
oil from an acre will average 250 pounds (about 35 gallons), or, based 
upon the dry shelled beans, 1 ton will produce from 28 to 30 gal- 
lons of oil and 1,600 pounds of meal. While, with the proper selec- 
tion of varieties, soy beans may be grown in practically all parts of 
the United States, the yields in the Southwest have been rather 
light, and the greater portion of our crop is produced and pressed 
in the Carolinas. 
EXPRESSING THE OIL AND ITS USES. 
The cottonseed oil mills can handle soy beans with little or no 
change in their present equipment. As soy beans may be stored 
with less danger of deterioration than cotton seed, it is possible to 
press these after the regular cotton crushing season is over. Soy 
bean oil does not need to be refined for paint and other technical 
uses. Its flavor is distinctly bean} , however, so before it can be 
used in food products it must be refined and deodorized like cotton- 
seed oil. Even the cold-pressed oil is not edible as it comes from 
the presses, in which respect the peanut has an advantage over the 
soy bean. 
Belonging to the group of drying oils, soy bean oil more closely 
resembles in its physical properties linseed and the other drying 
oils than peanut, cottonseed, and similar semidrying oils. It has, 
therefore, been used largely as a substitute for linseed oil in the 
making of paints, linoleums, and like products. As already men- 
tioned, however, it is perfectly wholesome, and in China and other 
parts of Asia forms the staple food oil of large classes of the people. 
When properly refined it becomes quite bland, and can be used in 
lard substitutes, oleomargarines, and even, perhaps, as a table oil. 
INCREASING OUR OUTPUT. 
The soy bean and the peanut constitute the two most promising 
possibilities for a large increase in our fat resources. Both of these 
are fairly sure annual crops. The oil mills already established have 
a crushing capacity sufficient to handle almost any amount of the 
raw materials that the American farmers produce. Moreover, a 
good market for the oil is assured. 
There is a double reason for increasing our crush of soy beans and 
peanuts. Not only will they furnish the United States with oils, 
but, what is perhaps still more important, they will greatly augment 
the protein supply. The soy bean press cake, that is, the residue 
after most of the oil has been expressed, need merely be ground 
to produce a most valuable flour. As these beans contain little 
starch, the flour they yield, from a nutritional point of view, is not a 
wheat substitute but a meat or milk substitute. While it is true 
that peanut and soy bean meals are first-class stock feeds, they are, 
