The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-03-12
'SOYA BEAN BROUGHT ID FRONT BY WAR British Attempt to Prevent Germans Getting Any EXPORT IS ENORMOUS Forty Million Dollars Value of Yearly Trade in Normal Times-Home
 of the Bean Is in
 Manchuria
EXPORT IS ENORMOUS

1 Changchun, Manchuria, March 1.-(Cor- ! respondence of the Associated Press) ! British efforts to prevent soya beans from getting into the hands of Germans
 and the discussion in the British Parlia ment of the many uses to which these l beans can be put in connection with the war, have attracted the worlds att tention to this city, the greatest soya I bean market in the world.
 Before the interruption of the bean ade by the war, the value of soya beans exported from China was variously l estimated from $25, ,o00,O00 to $4o,00O000 gold annually.
 Manchuria is the home of soya beans l and nearly 75 per cent of the beans pro
 duced on the plains of northern China are shipped on the railroads centering l in Changchun. The railroad north from 1 here to Harbin is under Russian control, and beans going that direction are trans l ferred at Harbin and sent to ~,adivostok for exportation in normal times The railroad south of Changchun is under Japanese control, and beans going out that direction pass through Mukden and l on south to the port of Dairen,
 HAS VARIED USES rev prOQucLS Ol the SOll nave Sucn varied uses as soya beans. In the hands of Germans who have developed it's possibilities to it's fullest extent, the soya bean would provide sustaining ration for soldiers, food for cattle, and of great value also for use in the manufacture of dynamite and high explosives. Within 10 years there have been mar velous discoveries concerning the uses for soya beans. When-the Japanese over of
 test with Russia, they first saw the
 possibilities of the beans so universally
 produced by the Manchurians. Experts
 on the extraction of vegetable oils from
 the value of the bean oil, and practical
 y all the nations of Europe began an
 investigation of this marvellous product,
 which had formerly been used chiefly by
 foreigners in the manufacture of sauce.
 Warehouses have sprung up on the
 wharves at Vladivostoll and Dairen which
 handle little else but beans, and the great jute bags containing the legumes pour into the two ports by the trainload and suggest Portland, Ore. at the season when the Oregon and Washington wheat drains down the Columbia river valley for exportation
 Great storage warehouses have also
 been erected in this city by firms repre- senting the European countries, as well |
 eminent in the trade and led all other
 nations in their development of the pos
 abilities of the bean.
 The soya bean yields a heavy per
 centage of vegetable oil of sort well
 adap ted to scores of uses This is avail
 able for food products. It makes a sub- stitute for lard and for olive oil and is utilized in oeomargarine and various other better substitutes. It enters into the manufacture of varnishes and painta and is used in initiating rubber. USED AS FERTILIZER Chinese farmers use the residue of the bean, after extracting the oil, for fer tilizer, and it is now coming into general use in many other sections for the same purpose Beancake is now sought in
 the dairy countries of Europe for cattle food, especially in Denmark. large factory has been constructed in Copen- hagen to treat beans.
 Soya beans produced in Manchuria are of three classes, the yellow. the green, and the black bean The yellow bean is
 most used in export trade It has a
 pod which varies in length from one and one-half to two inches and is produced on a stem which grows upright to a height of about three feet in good soil. The bean section of Mancruria re- sembles Canadian wheat districts. Ere quently along the Manchurian railways there are districts where the only crop on the rolling prairies for a hundred miles in beans. They are intensively cultivated by the Chinese, who have very small tracts of land and keep their en- tire families busy hoeing and weeding 1 the beans.
 | There are few fences in this country. l Division lines are generally marked by |, low heaps of earth and in all directions there are family graveyardS, with many l