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Show Money From Waste The farmer is interested in the efforts of chemists to convert waste matter of the farm into money. A striking example of the benefits which thus come about is the present pres-ent value in cotton seed, which once was regarded as useless and of no value. The Department of Agriculture recently issued the following statement of possible future fu-ture benefits: "Farmers may anticipate that in future the farm by-products or crop wastes such as corn-stalks, straw and cotton stalks may be made to help pay for their production, pro-duction, Dr. W. W. Skinner of the Department of Agriculture believes. be-lieves. But he does not think that developments in the utilization utiliza-tion of these by-products as the raw materials for chemical and manufacturing industries will come as a sudden change. He points out that the advances that have been, made have been the result of steady and persistent research which has uncovered, step by step, some cf the possibilties latent in these by-products which are composed com-posed chiefly of cellulose, lignin and carbohydrates. "Dr. Skinner, who is assistant chief of the unit in charge ci chemical and technological research re-search in the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils says that the utilization of cottonseed has been one of the most spectacular examples of progress in the disposal of what was once a crop waste. 'At the time of the Civil War,' he says, 'cottonseed was a waste product and disposal was a real problem. By 1870 it was recognized as a fertilizer. fer-tilizer. By 1880 the value of the cottonseed meal as a cattle feed had been recognized. By 1890, thanks to the ingenuity, of the chemist, meuods had been developed devel-oped whereby the unsightly, ill smelling offensive, crude cottonseed cotton-seed oil was converted into a snow white, svj.et smelling, pleasant tasting, hard fat or shortening material. ma-terial. "This latest development was made possible by the efforts of a research chemist, hidden away in his cloistered laboratory, juggling his molecules and his atoms, cutting cut-ting out an atom from a molecule, much as you would cut an eye out of a potato, or hanging an atom onto a molecule, much as you vould hang your hat on a rack. The hard, white pastry shortening shorten-ing made from cotton seed oil is known chemically as a hydrogen-ated hydrogen-ated fat; that is, a hydrogen atom by chemical legerdemain has been hung onto a molecule of vegetable oil, and Titereby changes the physical phys-ical properties of the original product pro-duct to better suit the purposes of man.' " |