58 Outlook to Nature 



owes to the farm beyond what it eats. Presi- 

 dent Roosevelt has recently said with great 

 force that the demand for wood is increased 

 even with all the increase in fire-proof construc- 

 tion of buildings, because the amount of build- 

 ing is increased. 



Compounded foods. 



Perhaps some of you are dreaming of the 

 days of chemical synthesis, when the laboratory 

 shall make the foodstuffs and the day of the 

 farm will be done. That day, however, will 

 never come. The chemist may synthesize 

 starch, but he will never make a potato. He 

 will never make a leaf of lettuce, or a hen's 

 egg, or an apple with its clean and fragrant 

 juices, or food for a cow, or a fiber of cotton, 

 or a flower that has breath from the wind and 

 color from the sky. He will never make a 

 seed that will know whether to grow into a 

 turnip or a cauliflower or a cabbage. He may 

 make food that will sustain life, but we shall 

 never be content merely to feed, and, above 

 all, to feed on tablets, for it is to be hoped 



