their production-cost in Japan, opened up a brand-new chapter in the humble life of the Manchurian bean.

With all that, it was not exactly as a food staple that the soya bean achieved its sensational conquest over Nippon. Just about that time the price of fish manure in Japan had been climbing, as it has been ever since. The catch of herring along the Japan coast had been steadily declining. That caused scarcity of fish manure, while the rice fields of Japan had to have fertilizer. At this juncture some brave spirit among the timid farmers of Japan tried an adventure of fertilizing his paddy field with bean-cake. The success was instantaneous.

There was a big noise made over the discovery. It was hailed everywhere as epochal. It was so impressive and so profound, in fact, that for a time the bean oil and the bean-cake changed their relative positions. Oil became a mere humble by-product, and the bean-cake the chief end of oil-mill industry. Japan found in soya beans the savior of her fast-failing rice fields. That must mean something to a people of 57,000,000 hungry mouths which can not get along without rice three times a day.

In the United States and in Europe, it is in the form of oil that the Manchurian beans are making their way into their industries. The scarcity of cotton-seed oil has forced many a soap-maker to go gunning for some satisfactory substitute. Many of them have found it in the bean oil. In 1918, the United States took 90 per cent. of the bean-oil export of Manchuria. While this tremendous proportion has not been maintained since then, America has been a chief customer for the bean oil. In examining the export figures at such ports as Dairen, one should always bear in mind that a very large portion of the beans shipped to Kobe, for example, is really meant for the United States. They pass through the oil mill at Kobe, and in the shape of bean oil they pass on to the United States.

This Manchurian bean, which came out of obscurity a couple of decades ago and in 1920 made up 74.2 per cent. of the total value of the exports of the port of Dairen, grows on a plant not quite three feet tall as a general thing, and in a pod a couple of inches long. It is a hardy citizen of the field. It suffers very little from pests and is largely immune to all manner of plant diseases. It calls not for fertilizer, and it stands the rigor of Manchuria's climate better than most plants.

Mr. Keiji Adachi, an acknowledged authority, puts the different kinds and varieties of Manchurian beans at 200 in number; but for practical commercial purposes, the soya beans are divided into three major groups according to the color of their skins: 1, Huangtou, or yellow bean; 2, Chingtou, or green bean; 3, Heitou, or Wuton, the black bean.

The yellow bean, which goes under the popular name of Chinyuan, or golden-round, is the name of the common beans in Manchuria to which belong such species as Fentien white eyebrow and great white eyebrow, black-navel, four-grain-yellow, small-golden-yellow, and many others. Of them four-grain-yellow is now being more and more cultivated all over both South and North Manchuria. It contains a greater percentage of oil than any other kind, sometimes as high as 20 to 22 per cent.

The green bean is the same as the yellow in shape and size, only different in color. It is subdivided into two kinds: one with green skin and yellow meat; the other green both inside and out. It is largely cultivated south of Mukden and classed under such names as large-graingreen, four-grain-green, pink-hair-green, iron-pod-green, and so on. It does not contain as much oil as the yellow bean and therefore is not as highly prized as the other.

The black bean is subdivided into three kinds: I, Tawutou, a large black bean which has black skin and green interior; 2, Hsiaowutou, or small black bean which

is black outside and yellow inside; and 3, Pienwutou, or flat black bean, which also has yellow meat. The black bean is used more for feed for domestic animals and for fertilizer, and also as vegetable food for men; while the yellow and green beans are used almost entirely for the extraction of oil.

The average yield of beans is about twenty-four to thirty bushels an acre, although some writers are making such extravagant claims as forty to seventy-five bushels

an acre.

The chemical analysis of the three beans according to the Dairen Central laboratory is as follows, stated in percentage:

Kaoliang, as the tall sorghum-like plant of Manchuria is called by the native, is now and has been for countless centuries the source of the staple food of the people there. In that sense, it is by far the most vital product of agricultural Manchuria. Indeed, before the soya bean rose suddenly into the limelight, kaoliang used to claim a major portion of the cultivated area of Manchuria, and to-day with all the sensational increase of bean area, it still claims 27 per cent. of the land under actual cultivation in Manchuria, outranking in this respect all other crops. It is said to be rather sensitive to climatic conditions and cannot stand the extreme cold weather of North Manchuria very well. But it is prolific, an acre often yielding more than 30 bushels. The annual production of this grain is estimated at 6,733,000 tons.

It is from the kaoliang grain that the native liquor called shaochiu, the burning liquor, is distilled. It is clear and transparent, but a very heady stuff and burning as its name, and it has a strong flavor. When Mongolian and Manchurian winter threatens to freeze the blood and marrow of the natives they seem to appreciate the shaochiu to the full. Its annual production amounts to some 1,965,000 gallons, valued at more than $8,000,000 in American money.

The usefulness of kaoliang does not end with the grain: its stalks are precious beyond words. Practically all the fences in Manchuria are made entirely of kaoliang stalks or re-enforced by them. They are one of the highly prized bridge-making and house-construction materials. And whenever and wherever coal and wood are either expensive or unobtainable, kaoliang stalks come to the help of the Manchurian to fight the ruthless sweep of winter weather out of the Siberian plains. Not only the stalks, but the outer leaves also are woven into mats for roofing and for grain-packing, without which the trade of the country would be utterly impossible.

MILLET

Millet is only second to kaoliang as a staple food of the people of Manchuria. It is not as sensitive to weather conditions as kaoliang. In North Manchuria where the rigor of the climate and the soil conditions, which are not as kindly as in the south, do not permit a kaoliang crop, millet flourishes without coddling of any sort. Naturally enough in North Manchuria, the native population take to millet as their main foodstuff, in place of kaoliang. Of late years, the Chosenese have come to appreciate the value of Manchurian millet as substitute for rice more than in the past. That brings about a considerable amount of export of the grain: in 1922 it