22 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



than 2 per cent, is of a character injurious 

 to health. In this report the cost of food, 

 drink and drugs annually used by the peo- 

 ple of the United States was placed at 

 $6,760,000,000, and that we pay for the 

 frauds and cheats used in our annual food 

 supplies $1,014,000,000. But this is not the 

 the worst of it. For the substances used 

 which are clearly injurious to health, we 

 pay the enormous sum of $136,200,OQO. 

 The lives of many and the health of 

 millions are thus sacrificed and impaired 

 at enormous cost without any compen- 

 sating considerations whatever, except 

 that of putting blood money into the 

 tills of ignorant or unscrupulous dealers. 

 In view of the enormous extent to which 

 food adulteration is now known to be carried 

 on throughout the country, the people can- 

 not too soon awaken to the dangers that 

 beset them on every hand. Whatever 

 stringent legislation may do to check this 

 growing evil should be done without delay, 

 and such precautions taken by the strong 

 arm of authority as will protect the average 

 consumer from the criminal rapacity of 

 those who thrive by the nefarious business 

 of adulterating food products. 



In this connection, Special Agent Wed- 

 derburn of the Department investigation 

 says: "As there exists no more serious or 

 exhaustive drain upon the resources of the 

 people than the adulteration of their food 

 and drug products, the federal govern- 

 ment should enact a law to prevent the 

 transportation of misbranded, poisonous or 

 deleterious food and drugs from one State 

 or Territory into another, not interfering 

 with the police powers of the State. ' ' 



No doubt such a law, strictly enforced, 

 would tend greatly to lessen the consump- 

 tion of adulterated food. Yet it must be 

 remembered that there are great numbers 

 of people who daily consume food known 

 to be adulterated by substances which 

 should be and probably are known to them 

 to be deleterious. Such people must be 

 protected against themselves by prohibi- 

 ting, so far as is possible, the manufacture 

 and sale of foods produced from unsuita- 

 ble materials, as well as those adulterated 

 with needless or unsavory substances. 



Professor Berthelot, the renowned 

 French chemist, believes that ultimately, 

 nearly all human foods will be made arti- 

 ficially from materials drawn from the air 

 and the earth. These will be synthetically 

 combined in great factories and will re- 



sult in pure foods, containing the proper 

 proportions of each of the chemical ingre- 

 dients of which we now find them com- 

 posed. There is nothing revolting in this 

 idea of the great chemist, for it is inspiring 

 rather than otherwise the thought that 

 the time may come when we shall derive 

 our food supplies from first hand, and 

 without the necessity of their having passed 

 through the filthy workshop of nature as 

 we see it. While we may consume some- 

 thing of the contents of the city sewers in 

 the potatoes or oranges used on our break- 

 fast tables, we have no desire to dwell 

 upon the too intimate relations between 

 cause and effect in this connection, or to 

 scrutinize too carefully the natural pro- 

 cesses by which the ultimate combination 

 was reached. We must merely accept the 

 general fact that the molecule of nitrogen 

 which found its way from the sewer to the 

 pulp of the orange, reaches us practically 

 uncontaminated. 



But while we are waiting for a realiza- 

 tion of the iridescent dream of Berthelot, 

 we may properly give attention to some of 

 the practices of our fellow citizens who are 

 less scrupulous about the sources whence 

 they draw the material for the so-called 

 food products which they place upon the 

 markets. It will be remembered that 

 Senator Manderson, of Nebraska, was re- 

 cently reported to have made a stout de- 

 fence of the manufacture of what is vul- 

 garly called " bull butter." * He is re- 

 ported to have affirmed that his senatorial 

 appetite was more appreciative of the 

 value and toothsomeness of oleomargarine 

 than of the average dairy butter of Neb - 

 raska. Whether the report was a libel 

 against the Senator, being incorrect, or 

 whether, being correct, it was a gross libel 

 against the dairymen and farmers of Neb- 

 raska, it is not material here to inquire. 

 The main thing is that one of the honored 

 lawmakers of a great State was reported 

 to favor the substitution of a product, 

 which may be and often is made from 

 highly unsavory materials, for the genuine 

 article of butter properly made in a cleanly 

 manner from healthy sources. 



Those who agree with Senator Mander- 

 son that oleomargarine is as good as 

 genuine butter, may possibly modify their 

 views on reading the following from one 

 of the recent monthly magazines: 



' 'Not the least interesting feature in New 

 York is the value of the dead horse that 



