84 MORRIS LOEB 



In the industries in which fermentation is a problem to be 

 dealt with, individual chemical research plays an important 

 role, and it was while pursuing such investigations that Pas- 

 teur discovered the great r61e of bacteria, revolutionizing at 

 the same time the whole domain of another department of 

 science, medicine. 



In agriculture we find a striking example of the value of 

 pure science, for here it was that the investigations and ex- 

 periments of Liebig clarified and simplified the subject. 



The fertility of the earth depends upon the chemical man- 

 ures, and it is calculated that in thirty years the present source 

 of nitrogen (Chile saltpetre) will be exhausted. The loss of 

 nitrogen in combustion, and otherwise in civilization, is a 

 permanent one. Chemical means exist for getting it back 

 from the air. With power from electricity producing a high 

 temperature, we can get nitric acid from the air, so that the 

 danger of giving up intensive agriculture from lack of nitrog- 

 enous manure has been averted by chemistry. 



The chief product of farming is starch, which forms the 

 bulk of all edible vegetables, for that is the chief food of 

 man, and in a larger degree it is the chief food of the herb- 

 ivorous domestic animals. The amount of starch which is 

 consumed as food by man and the domestic animals in the 

 United States alone cannot be far below fifty million tons 

 per year. In addition to this enormous use of the sub- 

 stance, great quantities of it are being converted into glu- 

 cose and into alcohol, and the use of starch for these 

 purposes as our scientific technology develops in this di- 

 rection, promises to be far greater than at present. We 

 may, indeed, expect that glucose will largely replace cane 

 sugar, and we are now assured from our present improved 

 devices that alcohol may be, at need, substituted for coal 

 and the products of petroleum in the production of heat and 



