The Nenana daily news. (Nenana, Alaska) 1918-1921, 1918-05-18
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that he knows nothing at all. And
yet. speaking of them as an article
of food, do most people know beans?
That is,do they understand all about
| them: their origin, where they grow,
how nourishing they are, how many
varieties exist, how they are grown
and prepared for marketing, and
whether there are special reasons
why pople should eat them in this
country today?
Origin of the Bean.
To find out when and where the
bean originated takes one back into
the dim mists of antiquity. The
time as well as the country where
: it started is uncertain. 1t may have
been China, India, or Northern At
RIGA. There are evidences that the
AZtecs used beans. Certainly beans
were cultivated and used by the
Indians in North America in the
days when the first European voy-
ayers came exploring.
Beans As A Soil Enricher
Beans, like peas, belong to what
is called the legume family, which
is always characterized by having
seeds within pod. There are many
varieties of beans. In addition to
the kinds edible by man, there are
others which are most desirable as
feed for live stock And what
makes the bean one of the most
valuable of all crops is the fact that
it enriches the very soil in which
it grows. Chemistry is outside the
province of this article, but it may
be mentioned that the bean, more
than most other plants, has the
power of drawing from the air
specially generous share of nitrogen
and replenishing the soil with it
after that valuable element has been
partially used up by other crops.
Thus beans fertilize the soil in which
they grow, fact understood by all
who use them and similar plants as
rotation" crop.
Dried Beans-A Source of Protein
Supply.
Much might be added about the
bean as a soil enricher, or about its |
special qualifications for stock feed, |
or even about how appetizing it is
as a fresh garden vegetable. But |
our special study here is the dried !
shelled bean, because that is the |
form in which it feeds most people. |
For feed them it does, particularly !
in furnishing those building !
substances, the proteins, which we
recently studied. Dried beans con-
tain more than % per cent of pro-
teins, far greater proportion than
is found in wheat flour or corn
meal, more even than in beef. Thus,
as a source of protein supply it may
be seen how valuable a substitute
beans are for the meat and other
foods which we should save to help
win the war.
The Bean Crop of 1917
The total crop of dry, edible beans
raised in the United States in 1917
was larger than ever before 1t
has been estimated at over 10000
900 bushels, with the largest pre-
vious crop at 100000 bushels. The
four states producing most beans in
1917 were California, Michigan, New
York, and Colorado, in that order.
And the four most important kinds
of beans raised in these states were
Navy Ia general term for the me-
diminished BEAM, Lima, Pinto and
California Pink.
Recently the so-called soy-bean-
also known as the soya- or sofa bean
has been much discussed. It is
one of the most valuable foods of
China and Japan, where it is grown
in abundance. A bean Of great
richness, containing an oil which not
only increases it's proportion of fat
but is also extracted and used COM
mercially, the soy-bean is now being
grown to an increasing extent in
this country. But in quantity of
domestic production it does not be-