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Show CHEMISTRY AND AGRICULTURE (Concluded from last week.) There ia a limit to food markets, they are governed by the law of supply and demand, largely created by industrial growth of comunities, as for instance 'Los Angeles today is the natural food market for southern Utah, and it therefore offers a fine market, but think of Los Angeles today to-day with its industrial development reaching out into tomorrow and realize re-alize the scale this industrial development develop-ment has attained, then vision what the raw material market is, and will be. As a matter of fact the West Coast cities are reaching out for raw materials today from the mines, and the farm, and the chemical development develop-ment in the industries of the West Coast has been phenomenal to say the least in that last ten years, and it is not out of the way to state here that with the climate and geographical geographi-cal position of southern Utah, this section can benefit from that demand for raw materials, as needed in the criemical industries, if some thought was given to the subject of industrial research in the matter biological and physical chemistry as related to materials ma-terials entering into the industries that develop this need. Within the next ten years the West Coast will have developed a well defined industrial indus-trial unit in industrial ehemistry, and those that win pioneer in thia field may find that they are entering a larger field than what it looks like at present in the west, and those that do not believe such statements let them make inquiries into the research program of the Dupont Corporation at Wilmington, Delleware. It would surprise them what this company has developed in the last ten years in uses of farm products as raw material ma-terial for chemical industries and results re-sults obtained industrially from waste products of the farm. We will even go further than that. The farmer of the future may even develop the lower forms of life, in uses industrially in biological chem- istry- This phase would enter into the matter of fata and proteins and flavors fla-vors with the aid of waste sawdust and molasses, and ammonia made from the air. As these micro-organism would aid and fit in such a plan It might be added that already this field is being developed for imlustria" purposes, and a question has beer asked, can the cattle industry compete com-pete in the industrial chemical field with yeast plant-Recently plant-Recently the U. S. department of agriculture made experiments where glucose is being converted quanta tively into gluconic acids, which acid -was priced at about $100.00 per pound limited demand due its being unknown quantity as to its uses. Now it har a wide market and can be sold for 35c per pound. The wastes of the cattle industry becomes worth 35c per pound by biological bio-logical chemistry research, and animals ani-mals unfit for food markets become worth more than the beef animal. It is self evident we are on the borderland of industrial development of biology and chemistry in relation to farm products and its wastes, and new industries will spring up to consume con-sume these raw material products of the farm, as fast as they can be produced. pro-duced. How far is your district advanced ad-vanced in such an idea? How near are you to furnishing the West Coa.st chemical markets with your farm raw material product? Do not take-it take-it for granted that I am writing this as a matter of pure conjecture. Look into it, and see what steps is Escal-ante Escal-ante valley taking in developing its possibilities in that direction. From the sage brush with its high content of potassium to the farm products exists a possibility fraught with industrial in-dustrial potential possibility. Symbiosis as part of biological chemistry and physical science will form a needed adjunct of all chemists chem-ists of the future and the man that can add the vision of the metallurgist with it, can go far in his chosen field, as industrial development of the fu- ture in the west, will like tha east depend upon mineral and organic raw I materials for its basis of manufactur- ing, and agriculture must develop along lines foreign to its past, and it cannot do without chemistry in its natural industrial and economic development de-velopment to come. In this development metals have played a great role, as though its metallurical research, scientists have arrived at organized conclusions of established facts unknown only a few years ago, and yet who have always existed, so how strange and slow we are in our development of use of matter, mat-ter, from the time the poor Dutch janitor struggled with his home made microscope. How we have fought him in his idea, and how we are fighting likewise against toppling over set ideas, but time does not turn back, as history proves. Those that are alive today, and who have lived through from 1914 prior to the World War to today will agree with me on this. As since that day the world has completely changed in everything ev-erything pertaining to its economic ife. Accepted facts then are as dead is the dodo bird of yester-year, and herefore in accepting the forward! 5tep in chemistry in relation to the levelopment of agriculture, we are but accepting what ourselves have leveloped by necessities of economics. After all man is but a unit in the reat program of organic life, draw-ig draw-ig sustenance from the animal and jetable kinpdem, and until but very -cent times we did not appreciate he part metals played in our foo' upply. Yet today we are studying heir uses in the matter of constitutes constitu-tes in our foodstuffs. So why not in elation to industrial chemistry? Today we have a proper classification classifi-cation made of vitamins, and how did we derive the study, so necessary :o human life. By studying the diet methods of plant life, and the rela-ion rela-ion the plant has the animal eating eat-ing it, and the human eating the animal, forming a cycle of economics l human life and expansion. Thosr hat can get a copy of Dr. Oswald 'chreir.er's address before the ajrri-ultural ajrri-ultural chemists recently assembled t Washington should do so. He i. :h:ef of the soil fertility division of '.he bureau of soil chemistry at Washington, Wash-ington, and he brings into play the ndustrial uses chemically the fol-'owing fol-'owing minerals are playing in the .ievelopment of agriculture, and conservation con-servation of the soils, such as manganese, manga-nese, copper, boron, iodine, zinc. Zmc by the way today is playing a stronp industrial part in the department of agriculture. We then continue into the agricultural agri-cultural uses of barium, strontium, caesium, titanium, chromium, vanadium, vanad-ium, aluminum, silicon, as it is applied ap-plied in the development of agriculture. agricul-ture. It might be noted here that most of these minerals are present in Sscalante valley, and can be utilized in the development of chemistry in relation to agriculture right at home. So that from the research world we have knowledge today that the mineral min-eral world is essential to the organic world, and that we humans as part of the organic world, are related in our beings to all this, and that with our knowledge capable of developing the harnessing of the use of metals in our vitamins, should be able to develop the use biologically of organic or-ganic products to serve as well in the industrial world, and to that end great strides have been made, and southern Utah has natural resources within itself capable of developing the two, the mineral and the organic if it will, and at its back door is a natural market for these raw materials all needed in the industrial world now being developed on our west const. With the ultimate growth of foreign for-eign 'markets in buying our manufactured manu-factured materials, and the orient growing apace with - its tremendous population, gives rise to the vision of untold opportunity in developing ur west coast markets, and no better territory ter-ritory for raw materials exists in the west than southern Utah. If it will, it can develop a chemical empire, reaching out In raw materials from its mines, and farms, to furnish the quest and requirements of the chemical chem-ical industries on the west coast of the present and the futuro, and such a vision I believe deserves study. E. F. B. DAUDE, E. M. 0 |
