SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



chemurgic meeting held preaches the doctrine of chem- 

 ical values that cotton is cellulose; corn is a combina- 

 tion of starch, proteins, and oil and teaches the new 

 principle of modern industry, the law of abundance. 

 Scores of chemurgic projects are afoot. Some of them 

 are pretty visionary; others as realistic as a microscope. 

 But all of them are significant. 



A sales agency at the North Pole for electric refrig- 

 erators does not sound a bit more fantastic than a ranch 

 in the wide open spaces of Texas to grow silkworms. 

 The picture of a bronzed, rangey Texan in cowboy boots 

 and a ten-gallon hat herding silkworms is a hilarious 

 fantasy. And yet, faster than a secretary could enter 

 their names, the sane citizens of Mineral Wells, deep in 

 the heart of the cattle country, oversubscribed the stock 

 of a new company that proposes to crack the Japanese 

 monopoly in raw silk, one of the most powerful com- 

 mercial monopolies left on earth. 



This spirited enterprise had its beginning a dozen 

 years ago when Peter Nader came from Syria and set- 

 tled in the neighboring town of Mingus. His old mother 

 came with him, and together with her few little treas- 

 ures wrapped in a handmade silk handkerchief, she 

 carried a tiny box of carved olive wood. Within the 

 box were a couple of ounces of grayish brown specks 

 that looked like poppy seeds silkworm eggs. 



From that point the story unfolds as logically as the 

 links of an anchor chain. There were a couple of lucky 



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