THE MODERN ALCHEMIST 



By Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture 



The following article has been abstracted by the Bditor from Mr. Wilson's 

 report as Secretary of Agriculture for igoj. No finer instance of the unselfish 

 ingenuity and practical inventiveness of the American race can be found than 

 zvhat Secretary Wilson and the hundreds of trained specialists of the Department 

 of Agriculture and of the B-vperintent Stations are doing to make gold from 

 oilr soil for the American people. 



THE year 1907 has been a year of 

 untoward conditions, requiring 

 all the industry and skill of the 

 farmers to grow an average crop. They 

 have struggled not onh' with an erratic 

 season, but with a scarcity of help in all 

 the states and territories of the Union. 



Such a year, with its hard winter — 

 summer weather in March and late cold 

 spring — gives exceptional emphasis to the 

 wisdom of this department's policy of 

 diversifying farm products and of estab- 

 lishing new crops. A general crop failure 

 in a field as large as the chief part of the 

 temperate zone of a continent must be 

 a rare occurrence. 



No general crop failure afflicts the 

 farmer this year, not even within small 

 areas. The production of the farms, all 

 things considered, is well up to the aver- 

 age of the previous five years in quantity, 

 while its value to the farmer, as now ap- 

 pears at this annual day of reckoning, 

 reaches a figure much above that of 1906, 

 which by far exceeded any previous year's 

 wealth production on farms. 



Out of the farming operations of 1907 

 the railroads will get an average haul of 

 freight, and foreign countries will take a 

 heavy excess above home consumption. 

 The farmer will have more to spend and 

 more to invest than he ever before had 

 out of his year's work. 



THE DESERT FEEDS THE CITIES 



When the Department of Agriculture 

 brought durum wheat to this country 

 from Russia and Africa during 1899 to 

 1902, the seed was sown that formed 

 practically the entire foundation of the 



present crop of durum wheat. At a cost 

 of $10,000 in the beginning, a crop worth 

 $30,000,000 now grows in regions of low 

 rainfall, where in the day of stock ranges 

 the steer roamed on 20 acres to find his 

 cud. This crop has encroached on the 

 home of the prairie dog and of the cactus. 

 It has spread throughout a wide strip of 

 country, extending from northern North 

 Dakota to southeastern New Mexico and 

 northwestern Texas. It is a common 

 crop in Montana and Idaho and in parts 

 of Washington, Oregon, and Utah. 



Durum wheat has entered into home in- 

 dustries. To a considerable extent it is 

 mixed with other wheat in making flour 

 for bread. It is promoting the manu- 

 facture of macaroni and kindred paste 

 products in this country and is prepared 

 as a breakfast food. It is the grain 

 through which the desert feeds the cities 

 of the east at home and abroad. 



As an export crop durum wheat has be- 

 come prominent. In 1905 Europe took 

 nearly 10,000,000 of the 20,000,000 

 bushels produced ; in 1906 about 20,000,- 

 000 bushels of the crop of that year. 



Last year two-thirds of the exports 

 went to Mediterranean countries. The 

 former sheep and cattle ranges sent 

 macaroni material to Marseilles, Naples, 

 and Venice ; to Greece, Spain, and the 

 countries of western Europe ; and even 

 to the old homes of durum wheat — north- 

 ern Africa and Russia. Shipments of 

 this wheat were made to 43 ports in 

 Europe and Africa named in trade re- 

 ports of the collectors of customs, and to 

 other ports unnamed. 



With an average production of about 



