| Show No End to Wonders Dehydration Packs Tasteful Dinner Into Vest Pocket Field Crops AI Are e Source of Plastics I Drying Removes Water and Air From Produce While Retaining Nutritional Values Milk Now Turned Into Kitchen Curtains Cull Potatoes Into Fuel Alcohol I American agrIculture WIll emerge from the war wIth a anew new pattern of crop productIOn that wIll not only gIve us everything we eat and wear but provIde much of the raw materials used m in industry During World War I the emphasIs was on the production of cereal crops Today although cereals are essentially necessary necessary essary heavIer emphaSIS IS being placed on dairy products meats vegetables eggs and OIls If the present trend con American milk goals m in the reconstruction period will be double our present output of billion pounds a year The nation nahon s farms will be permanently producing more meat and eggs more vegetables and more oil yielding crops such as soybeans Two developments are credIted wIth adding Impetus to the new farm production trend Both ha hae ha e a been spurred by scientific research and the necessIty of meeting wartime problems One IS dehydratIOn or the dry preservation of food The other IS or the SCIence of transforming farm crops into industrial pro products on IS not new In fact it IS as ancIent as the sun that has been drying the water aler out ot of things for ages But to the old t on processes have been added new I techniques that have so revolution ItS future es that some economists predict that food dehydration plants may become as common m in agricultural areas as canneries and are to today today day An Idle dream you say Not so Idle perhaps when It is consul ered that there are more than dehydration plants In the United States today compared with only five flye In 1940 J B W Wyckoff of the AgrIcultural Marketing on recently estimated that the Un ted States will dehydrate vegetables at the rate of to million pounds m in 1943 as compared With millIOn pounds m in 1942 Yet last year s totals were seven tunes the 1940 volume To meet the 1943 44 dehydrated food reqUirements as presently known he added WIll require ev every every ery third egg and one out of every 12 pounds of whole milk produced Requirements for dehydrated meat tally cally non eXIstent a year ago will be approximately 60 mIllion pounds m lD 1943 Dehydration Saves Shipping The remarkable Impetus given de on grew out of a shortage of sh space cans and containers to meet lend lease demands and the food tood cements of our fighting Allies One ship loaded With de dehydrated dehydrated hydrated food can carry upward of 10 times umes as much food as a sh p loaded with bulk food Improvements m in dehydration technique have followed two maJor trends One has been to compress the food into an incredibly small space The other has been to pre preserve serve the food s palatability and nu nuI I onal value Many foods normally average 90 per cent water DehydratIOn as originally cod ced meant removIng lag Ing most of the water Now the I food IS not only dehydrated but de deI I bulked as well by having the air pressed out of It The result is food compressed into blocks or bri briquettes Thus It IS possible to have havea a vest pocket serving of meat meat car carrots carrots rots cabbage milk and eggs that would provide all the elements of a hearl hearts meal and yet take up no nomore nomore more shipping room than a package of 01 cigarettes Typical food volume reductIOns as a result of on and corn com bM n F 7 t I d a s s v 4 u The scientist teams up with the farmer In ushering In new era of agricultural production are sauer kraut 90 per percent er cent cabbage 80 per cent pota potatoes potatoes toes 75 per cent onion omon beets and carrots 65 per cent egg powder 50 per cent hamburger 50 per cent dehydrated soups 50 per cent One pound of potato bricks Yields 24 helpIngs A five gallon container of dried toma tomatoes toes swells to a quarter of at a ton when water is added Dehydrated Deh Foods Flavorful As contrasted with their crude predecessors of World War I to today today day s dehydrated foods are flavor flavorful flavorful ful Dunked and cooked m water these foods emerge With almost no sacrifice of flavor and With tally cally no loss of proteins carbohydrates carbohydrates drates and minerals They suffer suITer no greater loss of vitamins than when occurs when fresh vegetables stand for a time In a store Hence It Is no surprise that Amer Amerlean Amerlean lean sold ers can rel reI sh scrambled eggs made from a dehydrated pow powder I der Or that Engl eat and like meat loaves and stews that crossed the Atlantic as t ny shreds of dried meat Thus milk butter citrus JUices as asell hell ell as potatoes peas spinach and a host of other food products are be ng successfully dehydrated The extent to which dehydratIOn has already caught hold wIth the cs Cl v Jan on here lD in America IS md Ind Gated by the fact that house houseWIves housewives WIves are buying dehydrated soups at the rate of mill on packages a year If H dehydration offers challenging pOss pops billt es for future farm markets then ItS industrial coun t n nM nC F kb M C r tt i 1 r 4 i tai Corn from Crom tie e field Is hi manufactured into a substitute for Cor tinfoil a qUIck drying dring printing Ink or a wallpaper coating under U II e a tran transforming magic of Or tl antis anks to the new science of Del it Is compre compressed sed to only a fraction of its lis weIght and shIpped overseas to Iced our armed forces Corces offers even more interesting es as a contributor to fu future future ture farm prosperity Already the products of at 40 m lion Ilion a ages res of American farm land are go mg Into our industrial plants And this Is but the beginning Already chemical engineers have come to th of all America as an Indus Industrial trial farm and of farm products as the raw materials for factories Perhaps the classic example of s effort to turn farm crops into vitally needed industrial products lies IJes lD in the field of syn thet c rubber It took the world a century to raise the product on of crude rubber to a b ll II on tons a year The United States now expects ex expects to develop a like capacity for e c rubber much of It IS made from corn and other farm products within the next year and anda a half The c se sc busy husy among hIs test tubes performs such mIracles as turn ng milk Into ketch ketchen en curtaIns corn Into a tinfoil sub substitute sunflowers into paper sor sorghum sorghum into insulat ng board barley and sweet potatoes into ethyl alto alco alcohol hol Furfural made from oat hulls isnow IS ISnow now be ng used In o 0 I 1 g and andIn andin In the processing of v resin Anti freeze fluids and fuel alcohol come from cull cuJI potatoes Glycerol from animal ammal fats IS being used m lD the production of dynamIte for forwar forwar war purposes Then there IS Zein Zeina a protein protem product of corn starch which lends Itself to the manufacture tore ture of yarn buttons wall paper coating and quick drying mk ink Soybean Source of Plastics Plashes In the field of plastics gluten a residue of corn Is being effectively used as IS casem a by product of milk But perhaps the biggest con contribution to plastics IS be ng made by soybeans Thanks to soybeans the automobile of the future may be grown from the soil sod Already gear gearshift shift handles steering wheels wm win dow dose frames distributors and a con consIder considerable sIder able variety of other parts are made of soybeans The basIc mold mg material for numerous plait cs IS a soybean compound Thus rad o 0 cabinets and plumbing fixtures m in postwar America may be merely a amold amold mold of soybean cakes Yes farms can be made the source of our future prosper ty Scientists and industrial can get farm materials from winch to make new es and promote m in increased creased factory productIOn from which prosperity springs In thIS era of definitely new agri agricultural agricultural cultural development one factor wIll loom big m in ng success or failure That factor IS productivity of at the so I For the extent to which our farms can continue to yield crops for the ne v t on try for chemurgic ut into m in industrial products or to help feed the v odd orld m in the crit cal postwar pe rued w ll Il depend on the fertIlity ot of the so I 1 that produces those crops Vincent ells ell agrIcultural re research search earch expert of Baltimore Md m in man inan an address before a Farm Chem Chemurgic conference once saId Chem can succeed only on farm land v where here plant foods are returned to the soil sOlI m in the form of commercial Pert fert luzer at a rate which at least balances the amount removed each elch year by growing crops and live livestock stock One of the s steps for forward forward ward he added IS that which helps the farmer learn more about his particular soil sOli and Its plant food needs State agricultural expert experiment ment statIOns are prepared to as ass ass s st at farmers not only m in soil tests to determine the proper fert I 1 zer analyses for various crops but also inform them on the placement to insure best results The importance of Mr s ons ens IS eVident when it is cons dered that after the war Amer AmerIca Ica will be faced with the greatest so L I rehab I 1 tat on Job m in ItS history This Tius IS because vast wartime farm product on demands are draWing fertil fert ty resources on an UJ in prece dented scale and because fort fert applications at present cannot bal balance balante ante ance the depict on rate Gro ving crops to w n the war Is of f course the farmers No 1 job jab sa d a statement of the M West Soil Improvement Committee A heavy draft on the farmers farmer s sa say sayings v ings account of plant food elements is a relatively small on to Victory If proper steps are made to repay the borrowed ed soil wealth when the war is over |
