No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 195 



tei'ials — not their buildiug iuto tissue and their awakeuiog to life — 

 that had formerly been regarded as exclusively the function of an- 

 other agency; numerous workers have since spent their efforts in 

 this field. As a result, not only have many of the simpler organic 

 substances of nature beeti produced in the laboratory, but a host of 

 entirely new compounds have been built up. It has been thought 

 that perhaps the principal components of foods might, because of 

 their complexity, defy the highest skill of the chemist to unravel the 

 secret of their true nature and, having taken them apart, to put 

 them together again. But, within the last decade, Fischar accomp- 

 lished the synthesis of the glucoses a group to which our starch and 

 fruit-sugars belong; I?ertheIlot, some years ago showed that fats can 

 be made in the laboratory and many investigators are working upon 

 the synthesis of the albuminoids. iSuch has been the progress in this 

 field of chemical activity that one of the greatest of French chemists 

 predicted, not long since, that by the opening of another century, 

 civilized lands would no longer be dependent upon the farm and the 

 transportation lines for food, but would have it made in factories of 

 their own from the cheapest material — air, water, coal, etc. 



This prediction is not one over which this generation of food-pro- 

 ducers needs to be particularly concerned as affecting the staples of 

 life. But the manufactures of the more expensive dainties and luxu- 

 ries find their fields of activity already invaded. 



The reception with which these new products are met, is not 

 wholly cordial. The average man regards them as very interesting 

 triumphs of science properly finding a place in the museums among 

 other curious things. If they are to be eaten, he would prefer that 

 others make the first experiment. If he is interested in the produc- 

 tion of the substances whose market they may threaten, he is less 

 dispassionate than the consumer of the brands. Meeting such oppo- 

 sition, the makers of the substitutes too often turn to fraudulent 

 means of securing a market, justifying their action by the specious 

 pleas that the consumer is prejudiced and the manufacturer of the 

 standard material is selfish and a seeker of class legislation, and that 

 for these reasons it is not unjust to gain for their products by deceit 

 the sale which their own merits will not at once win for them. It is 

 easy to overlook the right which a buyer has to receive the article for 

 which he asks and is willing to pay, even though his selection may be 

 guided by prejudice. We sometimes forget on the other hand the 

 truth which history teaches, that if the new invention is useful, while 

 we may prevent its violent disturbance of existing conditions by the 

 use of wise public regulations, we shall not prevent its constantly 

 finding its place and remaining as a permanent addition to the re- 

 sources of the race. 



The new problems constantly introducing themselves to the con- 



