Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 2, Number 24, DeMotte, Jasper County, 5 January 1933 — Chemistry May Yet Do Away With Wheat Field [ARTICLE]

Chemistry May Yet Do Away With Wheat Field

Without the help of skilled chemists to analyze soils and fertilizers our scientific plant breeders would be powerless. ‘ ? ' They- could never have given us new types of wheat which grow farther north than ever before, wheats which ripen from seed to harvest in so short a time that immense new corn belts have been opened up, while the world price of wheat has tumbled. Chemistry may, any day, produce an artificial wheat product, as it has given us artificial dyes and drugs which ambfint to exact laboratory copies of what nature grows. Fifty years ago all the dyes used by 'man were obtained from plants, bark of trees, roots, insects and so on. Today, these are superseded by thousands of exquisite artificial dyes made in an infinite variety of shades, practically all urt it r u tl I’iil ^**<ll Ulf. This chemical development killed the woad-growirg industry which went on for two thousand -years in these islands. It finish'd maddergrowing in France and ruined the indigo plantations of India. Many thousands of acres were thrown out of cultivation, and millions of money were lost. During the next, fifty yees, who can say that c heat may not beCGire a factory product? If a drug like quinine and a dvo I'he ind ro can b > made ;n :h a laboratory. " hat is to prevent problems of nutrition frori I -i:m d- olt with in the same nmnner?—London Tit-Bits.