Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1888-03-27
FOOD BY SCIENTIFIC METHODS.
The Possible Results to BE Reached by
Chemistry--The Maithusian specter.

The Possible Results to BE Reached by
Chemistry--The Maithusian specter.
1t is pleasant to turn FROM these wars
and rumors of wars and preparation Tor
fighting to some of the contemplated VIC
tories Of peace and science. The Sicnens
are n famous family of German savantS
who have made important discoveries In
several departments of scientific research.
One of the brothers invented the process
of storing electricity. The possibilities Of
this invention are incalculable. We are
only beginning to dimly realize its i'm
portance Dr. Siemen, another brother,
has written u work in which he boldly
states that we are on the eve OF the pro-
duction of food by scientific methods
without depending upon plant or animal
reproduction and growth. He says thaG
chemistry, in conjunction with electro
technics, will some day teach man TO
make the food he now obtains from the
earth by combination of the elements
of which such food consists and which
nature supplies everywhere in the utmost
abundance In other words, science, he
thinks, may at some future time lay the
Malthusian specter of overpopulation and
diminishing returns from tho soil.
Another suggestion is that the recent
achievements of science with the AID OF
mechanical art, upon the field of APP
piled electricity, will restore to labor the
relative independence from capital it en-
joyed before the command of machine
power Ivy the latter rendered competition
Of the individual wage worker with me-
chanical production impossible. They will
also restore, he thinks, the greater exer
else of individual intelligence in labor, in
a., obuY ,
compelled by the present organization of
industrial production. He does not de-
fine his meaning in detail on this point,
but it is evident, from his other public ex-
pressions on this favorite subject, that he
expects those results to be accomplished
by the great cheapenng Of mechanical
power through its general distribution,
among the mass Of workers. by electricity,
so that they can free themselves from the
advantage capital has now over them by
exclusive command of expensive machine
power.
What vista this opens up before us
If the chemist can take the elements Of
the earth about us and produce whole
some and palatable food at a very trifling
cost, how changed will be the whole life
of man on this planetl Poverty will be
abolished. The surface of the globe can
then become one vast city. There would
be no more slaughtcring of animals for
food, nor toilsome labor in the wheat and
corn fields. All this may seem visionary;
but suppose an old Grecian or Roman
was told that some day men would travel
in safety at the rate of GO miles an hour;
that immense ships would pillow through
the ocean ut 20 miles an hour, regardless
of wind or waves; or, more marvellous
still, that message could be flashed
under the ocean and an answer be re
turned in few moments. The citizen of
the ancient world would have said that his
informant was a lunatic; that such things
was prodigies that man could never hope
to accomplish. The telephone, through
which people can keep up a conversation
hundreds of miles apart, would have
seemed still more incredible to those who
lived in a prescientitic age. The possibili-
ties of scientific discovery are simply i'll
calculable. -Demorest' Monthly.