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Show No End to Wonders! Dehydration Packs Tasteful Dinner Into Vest Pocket; Field Crops Are Source of Plastics Drying Removes Water and Air From Produce While Retaining Nutritional Values; Milk Noiv Turned Into Kitchen Curtains; Cull Potatoes Into Fuel Alcohol. American agriculture will emerge from the war with a new pattern of crop production that will not only give us everything we eat and wear, but provide much of the raw materials used in industry. During World War I, the emphasis was on the production of cereal crops. Today, although cereals are essentially necessary, nec-essary, "heavier emphasis is being placed on dairy products, meats, vegetables, eggs and oils. If the present trend continues, con-tinues, American milk goals in the reconstruction period will be double our present output of 122 billion pounds a year. The nation'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 have been spurred by scientific research and the necessity of meeting wartime problems. One is dehydration, or the dry preservation of food. The other is chemurgy, or the science of transforming farm crops into industrial products. Dehydration is not new. In fact, it is as ancient as the sun that has been drying the water out of things for ages. But to the old dehydration dehydra-tion processes have been added new techniques that have so revolutionized revolution-ized its future possibilities, that some economists predict that food dehydration plants may become as common in agricultural areas as canneries and condenserles are today. to-day. An Idle dream, you say? Not so idle, perhaps, when it is considered consid-ered that there are more than 200 dehydration plants In the United States today, compared with only five in mo. J. B. Wyckoff, of the Agricultural Marketing administration recently estimated that the United States will dehydrate vegetables at the rate of 350 to 400 million pounds In 1943 as compared with 100 million pounds in 1942. Yet last year's totals were seven times the 1940 volume. "To meet the 1943-44 dehydrated food requirements as presently known," he added, "will require every ev-ery third egg, and one out ot every 12 pounds of whole milk produced. Requirements for dehydrated meat practically non-existent a year ago, will be approximately 60 million pounds in 1943." Dehydration Saves Shipping. The remarkable Impetus given dehydration de-hydration grew out of a shortage ot shipping space, cans and containers, to meet lend-lease demands and the food requirements of our fighting Allies. One ship loaded with dehydrated de-hydrated food can carry upward of 10 times as much food as a ship loaded with bulk food. Improvements 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 preserve pre-serve the food's palatability and nutritional nu-tritional value. Many foods normally average 90 per cent water. Dehydration as originally practiced meant removing remov-ing most of the water. Now the food Is not only dehydrated but "de-bulked" "de-bulked" as well, by having the air pressed out of it The result Is food compressed into blocks or briquettes. bri-quettes. Thus it is possible to have a vest-pocket serving of meat carrots, car-rots, cabbage, milk and eggs that would provide all the elements of a hearty meal and yet take up no more shipping room than a package of cigarettes. Typical food volume reductions as a result of dehydration and com- J r The scientist teams up with the farmer in ushering in new era of agricultural production. pression are: sauer kraut, 90 per cent; cabbage, 80 per cent; potatoes, pota-toes, 75 per cent; onion, beets and carrots, 63 per cent; egg powder, SO 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 tomatoes swells to a quarter ot a ton when water is added. Dehydrated Foods Flavorful. As contrasted with their crude predecessors of World War I, today's to-day's dehydrated foods are flavor-fuL flavor-fuL Dunked and cooked in water, these foods emerge with almost no sacrifice of flavor and with practically practi-cally no loss of proteins, carbohydrates, carbohy-drates, and minerals. They suffer no greater loss of vitamins than when occurs when fresh vegetables stand for a time in a store. Hence it Is no surprise that American Amer-ican soldiers can relish scrambled eggs made from a dehydrated powder. pow-der. Or that Englishmen eat and like meat loaves and stews that crossed the Atlantic as tiny shreds of dried meat. Thus milk, butter, citrus juices, as well as potatoes, peas, spinach and a host of other food products are being successfully dehydrated. The extent to which dehydration has already caught hold with the civilian ci-vilian population here in America is indicated by the fact that housewives house-wives are buying dehydrated soups at the rate of 100 million packages a year. If dehydration offers challenging possibilities for future farm markets, then chemurgy, its Industrial coun- : "'is A pi... Corn from the field Is manufactured Into a substitute for tinfoil, a quick-drying printing ink er a wallpaper coating under the transforming magic of Chemurgy. Or thanks to the new aclenre of Dehydration It Is compressed to only a fraction of IU weight and shipped overseaa to feed our armed forces. terpart, offers even more Interesting opportunities as a contributor to future fu-ture farm prosperity. Already the products ot 40 million acres ot American farm land are going go-ing into our Industrial plants. And this is but the beginning. Already chemical engineers have come to think of all America as an industrial indus-trial farm and of farm products as the raw materials for factories. Perhaps the classic example of chemurgy's effort to turn farm crops into vitally needed industrial products lies in the field of synthetic syn-thetic rubber. It took the world a century to raise the production ot crude rubber to a billion tons a year. The United States now expects ex-pects to develop a like capacity tor synthetic rubber much of it is made from corn and other farm products within the next year and a half. The chemurgic scientist busy among his test tubes performs such miracles as turning milk into kitchen kitch-en curtains; corn into a tinfoil substitute; sub-stitute; sunflowers into paper; sorghum sor-ghum into insulating board; barley and sweet potatoes into ethyl alcohol. alco-hol. Furfural made from oat hulls is now being used in oil refining and in the processing of wood resin. Anti-freeze fluids and fuel alcohol come from cull potatoes. Glycerol from animal fats is being used in the production of dynamite for war purposes. Then there is Zeln, a protein product of corn starch which lends itself to the manufacture manufac-ture ot .yarn, buttons, wall-paper coating and quick-drying ink. Soybean Source of Plastic. In the field of plastics, gluten, a residue of corn, is being effectively used, as is casein, a by-product ot milk. But perhaps the biggest contribution con-tribution to plastics is being made by soybeans. Thanks to soybeans, the automobile of the future may be grown from the soil. Already, gear shift handles, steering wheels, window win-dow frames, distributors and a considerable con-siderable variety of other parts are made of soybeans. The basic molding mold-ing material for numerous plastics is a soybean compound. Thus radio cabinets and plumbing fixtures in postwar America may be merely a mold of soybean cakes. Yes, farms can be made the source of our future prosperity. Scientists Sci-entists and industrialists can get farm materials from which to make new commodities and promote Increased In-creased factory production from which prosperity springs. In this era of definitely new agricultural agri-cultural development, one factor will loom big in determining success or failure. That factor is productivity ot the soil. For the extent to which our farms can continue to yield crops for the new dehydration industry, indus-try, for chemurgic utilization into industrial in-dustrial products or to help feed the world in the critical postwar period, pe-riod, will depend on the fertility of the soil that produces those crops. Vincent Sauchelli, agricultural research re-search expert ot Baltimore, Md., In an address before a Farm Chemurgic Chem-urgic conference once said: "Chemurgy "Chem-urgy can succeed only on farm land where plant foods are returned to the soil in the form of commercial fertilizer at a rate which at least balances the amount removed each year by growing crops. and livestock. live-stock. "One of the significant steps forward," for-ward," he added, "is that which helps the farmer learn more about his particular soil and its plant food needs. State agricultural experiment experi-ment stations are prepared to assist as-sist farmers not only In soil tests to determine the proper fertilizer analyses for various crops, but also inform them on the placement to Insure best results." The importance of Mr. Sauchelll's observations is evident When it is considered that after the war America Amer-ica will be faced with the greatest soil rehabilitation Job In its history. This-Is because vast wartime farm production demands are drawing fertility resources on an unprecedented unprece-dented scale and because fertilizer applications at present cannot balance bal-ance the depletion rate. "Growing crops to win the war Is, ot course, the farmers' No. 1 job," said a statement ot the Middle West Soil Improvement Committee. "A heavy draft on the farmer's 'sav ings account' ot plant food elements b a relatively small contribution to victory, if proper steps are made to repay the borrowed soil wealth when the war Is over." |