46 MAN ON THE LANDSCAPE 



Dr. Herty brought industry to the South, switched land from 

 soil-depleting cotton to soil-conserving forests, and saved the 

 remaining world supply of spruce for more enduring uses. 



"Chemurgist W. H. Mason looked at sawdust, stumps, 

 chips and other wood waste. Grinding, steam blasting, and 

 hot pressing produced a hard, strong sheet bound together by 

 lignin. Another market for fast growing saplings was found. 

 Trees are becoming a crop. Trees give us paper, cellophane, 

 rayon, photo-film, gun powder, oils, resin, plastics, glue, 

 varnish, germicides, alcohol and lactic acid. Forests become 

 more important every year." 8 



Only a few of the synthetics and direct industrial products which 

 come from crops have been mentioned. Alcohol made from corn and 

 wood goes into scores of subsequent industrial uses. Research in 

 the field goes on constantly. Organized chemurgic activity was 

 born of the agricultural depression of the 1930's, in an effort to 

 find uses for surplus farm crops. The idea was to put urban unem- 

 ployed people to work processing the unsaleable farm products. 

 Thus purchasing power would be increased, relief rolls reduced, sur- 

 pluses disposed of. The results were so promising and the chemur- 

 gic goods so useful that progress has been cumulative. 



An inquiry to the National Farm Chemurgic Council, Columbus, 

 Ohio, brought these statements: It is very difficult to get data on 

 the amounts of organic products going into chemurgic uses. The 

 farmer does not know what proportion of his crops end up in such 

 factories. A careful survey of hundreds of manufacturers would be 

 required to secure a close approximation. The best estimate the 

 Council can arrive at is that 40 million U. S. acres are devoted to 

 growing the raw materials of chemurgy. The demand for such ma- 

 terials is so great and research so successful that by 1955 an addi- 

 tional 50 million acres will be required to satisfy the U. S. market. 



Asked where the 50 million acres were to be found, the Council's 

 secretary replied, "all over the world." And what about the rest 

 of the world? The Council has associates in 25 countries, through 

 which an exchange of research goes on. 



It is obvious that as the chemurgic movement grows, all over the 

 industrial world, the levy against the soil and its vegetation will 

 increase markedly. Plants and more plants will be needed. If cer- 

 tain exhaustible minerals, ores particularly, become scarce, and 

 some are already, the demand for organic substitutes for metals will 

 whip chemurgy along still faster. 



Q.E.D. The individual's responsibility as a free citizen does not 

 nermit him to be wholly concerned with his own little private world. 

 He may be happy, and doing a useful work in his immediate com- 



8 Carter, Vernon, Chemurgy and Conservation, Personal Growth Leaflet No. 76, 

 National Education Association, Washington, D. C., pp. 12-13. 



