10 WAGES AND EMPIRE 



The first step in this inquiry is not to declare that 

 food increases at any particular rate, but to examine 

 the actual process by which food is manufactured. 



This involves taking stock of the ingredients of 

 which food is composed. Food consists of the following 

 substances : 



The ingredients of food. — Oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, 

 carbon, sulphur, phosphorus, chlorine, sodium, potassium, 

 calcium, magnesium, and iron ; these twelve chemical 

 elements are all that count. 



The following seven elements occur only in the 

 minutest quantities, and the presence of some of them 

 may be accidental : argon, silicon, fluorine, iodine, 

 bromine, manganese, and copper. 



These substances to be of use for food must be 

 compounded with energy into the following forms : 



The forms of food. — 



1. Water. 



2. Carbohydrate (water and carbon). 



3. Fat (water with a larger percentage of carbon). 



4. Protein (carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and 



sulphur). 



5. Salts, vegetable or animal, containing the rest 



of the elementary matter necessary to life. 

 Now men know of no method for compounding 

 substances into food except the use of plant-organisms. 

 The plant possesses the power of compounding matter 

 into exactly the form required for our use. 



The problem of food-making, therefore, is turned 

 into the problem of the use of the plant-organisms, 

 because the matter of which food consists exists in 

 sufficient abundance (see Table No. I). The plant 

 collects the matter which surrounds it, compounds it 

 into suitable form, and delivers it to us as food. Our 

 business consists, therefore, merely in securing the plant- 

 organism and in setting it up to work, when the plant 

 will of itself do the rest. 



