THE MAGIC BEAN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18674, 2 October 1922, Page 6

THE MAGIC BEAN

After eight years’ effort to ‘'tame” the Soya bean —the natural home of which is in the Far East—Mr J. L. North, curator of the Loyal Botanic Gardens, Regent's Park, London, lias produced a variety, which, it is claimed, is not only able to weather the very adverse climate of England, but can be made to flourish. It well deserves to be called the Magic Bean, for in addition to a rich yield of oil (or lubrication and other purposes, it can be made into flour end also used in the manufacture of a dozen things—including linoleum! “By special request I have sent seeds of my variety practically all over the world,” Mr North told a reporter early in August. “They are now being grown and tested in 23 counties in England. Scotland, and Ireland, in the Channel Islands, and in the Transvaal, Cape Colony, Ecuador, Brazil, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Tasmania, Queensland, Spain, Portugal, Austria, and Syria. In and around London about 20 acres of crops of the bean are now in luxuriant foliage- the heavy and insistent rains have made it too luxuriant, for it is shading the flowers, which need light and sunshine. “Everything depends on this month's weather. If it is dry I hope to be able to say in the autumn that my bean can be cultivated generally in this country, with far-reaching results. “Soya bean flour, made after the oil has been extracted, has been proved to be twice as nutritious as ordinary wheat flour, and it would be infinitely cheaper. '•