228 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1952 



equipment, often high temperatures and pressures, skillful engineer- 

 ing, and a number of operations to achieve what the plant does with a 

 little sunlight and the simplest of chemicals. The chemist has dis- 

 covered a few reactions that take place under very mild conditions 

 and result in the formation of complex molecules from several simple 

 ones. But he is a long way from understanding how nature operates. 

 When, a few centuries hence, such reactions can be duplicated in the 

 laboratory our present production methods for many organic chem- 

 icals, ingenious and skillful as they now appear, will look archaic. 



Characteristic of each plant is its ability always to build up the 

 same chemicals year after year. It has been observed, however, that 

 if a plant is moved to a different climate the relative amounts of the 

 chemicals present may often be modified. The day will come when 

 a plant, after treatment with a certain chemical, will be inhibited from 

 synthesizing one or more of the substances normally found within its 

 structure or, on the other hand, the plant may be stimulated to create 

 one or more of its chemicals in much larger amounts. Thus fodder 

 crops might result from plants which now contain some toxic con- 

 stituent, or plants which contain physiologically active medicinal sub- 

 stances may be induced to produce them in larger quantities. 



The present food supply of the world, if properly distributed, would 

 be adequate. With the steady increase in population, sooner or later 

 all the arable land will be utilized, and even intensive farming of the 

 soil through improved agricultural methods, plant stimulants, weed- 

 controlling agents, pesticides, and other developments will not meet 

 the world's food requirements. The resources of the sea will then be 

 more intensively exploited than at present. Fish is a valuable food of 

 high protein and rich vitamin content. It can be expanded to supple- 

 ment meat supply. I envisage a more systematic fishing industry than 

 at present — certain types of fish ranches — large f enced-off water areas 

 in which fish are grown, fed, and annually harvested — analogous to 

 cattle ranches. Sea farming will be a term comparable to land farm- 

 ing. Marine plants for food, fuel, or chemical use will be grown and 

 harvested like land crops instead of the present system of collecting 

 what happens to be washed ashore. When, with these extensions, the 

 food supplies reach the limit the chemist will provide antif ertility com- 

 pounds which upon addition to the diet will assure a means of control- 

 ling the birth rate. 



The diets of humans have been improved until now many ailments 

 resulting from diet deficiencies are well understood and have largely 

 been overcome either by balancing or supplementing the food intake. 

 Concentrated or synthetic foods containing just the necessary constitu- 

 ents for human growth and development are feasible, but they will 

 never be accepted by persons in good health as long as eating attractive 



