for centuries the soybean has been cultivated been used for food by people in the orient the soybean belongs to the same family of plants as do our common beans and  this chinese farmers finds that his crop of beans is of up fine quality and ready for harvesting that will be enough for his own family and some less to sell the cultivation of soybeans was begun extensively in the united states about one thousand nine hundred eighteen since that time it has been studied intensively by granma sin several agricultural experiment station experiments are carried on in small plots of so i beans to discover the best varieties of the hundreds known and the best methods of collaborations trained observers what's the plants in all the stages of their growth to see if the beans have desirable characteristics this soil expert dr blake is particularly interested in the so i mean as a means of conserving the fertility of the s if used correctly the soybean is a good soil builder like most legumes plants the soybean has the power of using the nitrogen in the air provided the roots are well not related to these not jewels contain bacteria and it is these which invert the nitrogen of the air into a form that the plant can use for this reason the soybean is a valuable plant in crop rotation  conservation these nitrogen fixing bacteria may be grown in laboratories these cabinets assure the proper temperature for growth the tiny bacteria grow on a jelly medium which supplies them with unnecessary nourishment these bacteria are sometimes mixed with peat before they are marketed the farmer may mix the peat containing bacteria with water and inoculate the seed by spraying then he mixes the seeds thoroughly for this reason he makes frequent visits to a nearby farm as the agronomist drives along the country road he observes this bill of corn which might have been better if soybeans had been used in a good crop rotation cattle and horses during the winter months i'll be ready for the combine in another month a few weeks later we find mr hill harvesting his soybeans with a modern combine like that used for w hopper gets full the beans are run into a waiting truck heated in these sixteen pipes to about two hundred degree enter the cylinders and are subjected to a pressure of about sixteen thousand pounds per square inch the great pressure with the help of the high temperature forces the all out of the the on from only expeller is next to force through this large filter to remove sediment the crystal clear i'll dips out along the side of the filter this chemist dr brothers is striving to improve the process by which the soybean meal is made into a hardened strong plastic after long and tedious labor in the research laboratory they may discover new procedures or new products which they engineering chemists can put into large scale production then it is transferred to these rollers which mix the soybean meal with the other ingredients that go into the manufacture of plastic before casting the mixture into a plastic the chemist tests it in this machine which is called a flow tester this curve indicates the plasticity of the mixture or dough under increasing pressure the chemist also inspects the piece but he uses asbestos gloves because the pressure has made it hot having passed the test the mixture is reduced to a powder and poured into this mold which will determine the shape of the finished object the mold is then placed in this hydraulic press here the soybean meal is well the dunder a pressure of about two thousand pounds per square inch and a temperature of more than three hundred degrees in this way the soybean is transformed by science and technology into parts that find many everyday use to appreciate the relationship of modern science to agriculture on the one hand and industry to agriculture on the other they are on a must strive to increase line productivity while the chemist works to find new industrial uses for the products of the farm