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board guttered all around, with a mouth leading into a subterranean tank. Upon this flat board embedded between the pairs of poles the five bean packages are heaped. The principle of pressing out the oil is exactly the same as in the old-style press made of a hollow treetrunk. Here as in the old press the pressure is applied by means of wooden spikes driven in between the strong wooden covering on top of the stack of bean cakes and the top of the four-posted enclosure. With sufficient pressure thus applied the cakes are left for about five hours, in which time the oil slowly runs out of the cakes and down into the underground tank.

In 1896 the bean-oil industry-at least in its mechanical aspects-took a step forward. At the Port of Newchwang in that year an Englishman set up a beanoil factory fitted with machinery made at Hongkong. There was no improvement made in the principle of the thing, but the beans were crushed into wafers between pairs of iron cylinders. Steam was used as power. The steamed bean wafers were packed into a series of iron screw presses worked by capstan bars.

COMING OF MODERN OIL MILLS

The next great step in the evolution of the bean-oil industry of Manchuria was taken immediately after the Sino-Japanese war. A Japanese bean-oil mill was established at Newchwang. It was equipped with machinery manufactured to order at Osaka. The machinery embodied the result of careful study of various cotton- and rape-seed presses in use in Japan and in Europe at the time. In this factory for the first time in the history of the bean-oil industry mechanical power displaced manpower altogether. In this Japanese mill hydraulic presses were used. The present presses in all the more advanced bean-oil mills in Manchuria are variously im

proved types of this original hydraulic press at Newchwang.

CHEMICAL EXTRACTION METHOD

The really revolutionary change came with the introduction of the chemical extraction method which took the place of the expression method of old. The chemical experts of the South Manchuria Railway Company at Dairen had been at work for years on a new method to get more oil from the beans. The old pressing-out method yielded only 50 per cent. of the oil content of the bean. As soon as the experts perfected the extraction method the company turned it over to a private concern to exploit on a sound commercial basis. In this the South Manchuria Railway Company followed its time-honored and established policy. The establishment of Suzuki Bean-oil Mill at Dairen in September, 1915, was the result. It marked the coming of a new epoch in the bean-oil industry.

By the expression method through the presses about 12 to 12.8 pounds of oil is obtained from a picul (which is 133.3 pounds) of beans, and two pieces of bean cake. By the chemical extraction method Suzuki mill gets about 171⁄2 pounds of oil and 106.7 pounds of bean meal out of the same amount of beans.

The advantage of the chemical method does not stop with the increased production of oil. It extends to the character of the bean meal as fertilizer. In the bean cake produced by the old expression method there is too much of oil left. That does not add to the virtues of the bean cake as fertilizer: on the contrary the presence of excessive oil retards its beneficial working in the soil. As cattle feed the presence of oil does not do the least good. Some farmers contend that it often causes trouble. Moreover the bean cakes out of the presses contain a

good deal of water. They cannot stand long storage. They are quicker to ferment. This is especially true when they are shipped through a tropical climate. The presence of water in the cakes makes their weight undependable, for in storage it shrinks. Add to this the time and trouble in breaking the cakes up before they can be applied as fertilizer. All these are the reasons why the bean meal produced by the chemical method commands a higher price in the Japanese market, which to-day is the chief consumer of bean cakes and meals for her ricefields.

It should be pointed out, however, that the chemical extraction method has its disadvantages also. In the first place, it takes a much greater amount of initial capital to build a plant for the chemical extraction system than an old-style expression plant. This means tying up a greater amount of funds, which is quite a consideration in a country where the interest-rate is as high as it is in the Far Eastern money market at present. Then there is the high cost of benzine and other chemicals used in the process. Then again, the packing of bean meal for shipment costs a good deal of money. With the bean cakes there is no need of any crates or boxes: they are shipped as they leave the presses. Moreover, the amount of bean meal produced by the chemical method has a disadvantage in point of weight compared with bean cakes. It is about 6 per cent. less, which is quite a handicap in most of the Chinese markets, where the buyer is apt to look at the weight more than the quality of the fertilizer.

All things considered, there is no question of the superiority of the chemical method, however. This is more especially true in Japan, where the labor cost is high. In 1918 when the bean-oil business attained its peak in both Japan and Manchuria there were thirtyeight mills in operation in the whole of Japan. Out of

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