The morning news., 1897-02-15
CornstnIk Possibilities.

I
It has not been a great many years
since cotton seed was regarded as a waste
product Now it is a very profitable part
of the crop, and brings millions of dollars
q year into the cotton belt II appears
altogether likely that the cornstalk. which
is even now virtually a waste product.
viii shortly vie with the cotton seed as
a money producer. The Morning News
has already told Of the value of cornstalk
cellulose as a packing for the sides of
ships, and of the purpose of the Cramps,
shipbuilders Of Philadelphia, to erect a
large plant in Illinois for the conversion
of the cornstalk into cellulose. 1t seems,
however, that this packing is only one of
the many possibilities of the cornstalk.
There are more than half dozen others
already in sight, and the chemists are
stil experimenting. They may evolve
half dozen more.
Mr.. Prater Of ST. Louis, who is con,
nected with a cornstalk enterprise at Ow-
ensboro, KY, and has given the product
careful, scientific study, was in New Or
leans the other day and talked entertain
ingly to a Picayune reporter with regard
to the possibilities Of the cornstaIk 1t
is his candid opinion that within few
years the farmers of the country will be
receiving from $15 to $25 per acre for their
cornstalks. Mills will be established in
the south and other parts of the country,
he says, and pretty nearly the whole crop
of cornstalks-at any rate, that part of
the crop which is grown on farms contlg-
uous to railway lnes-win be used in the
mills. The market for the manufactured
products is ready made as the products
win be staple articles, in constant de,
mand.
OF the products that may be evolved
from the matured cornstalk-the stalk
which has borne its grain-Mr. Prater
enumerates cellulose, celluloid, smokeless
gunpowder lacquer, cattle feed, roofing
material, and a material that will answer
every purpose of papier-mache Green
stalks, he says, are rich in glucose, and
will yield "a better quality and a finer
sugar with less expense than can be made
from the cane of louisiana" The Plea.
yune's representative was inclined to.
think Mr. Prater was not in earnest; but
he declared that he was deeply in earnest.
Said he:
They make sugar now from beets and
from barks and leaves and potato vines
Why not cornstalks? II you have ever
tasted a green cornstalk or the pith
rather you know well enough that gin
cose is one of the pronounced chemical
properties. Glucose exists in all vegeta-
tlon to greater or less extent, but sugar.
cane and the cornstalk, being both of
kindred vegetable families, possess the
greater amount of glucose.
The demand for smokeless gunpowder
is almost unlimited. At present it costs
more than 81 a pound to manufacture it
from the ordinary materials. Mr. Prater
asserts that it can be made from the
pith of the cornstalk for Is cents pound.
The lacquer from the cornstalk is said TO
be beautiful in appearance, perfectly wa
terproof and sufficiently hard for any use
to which lacquer is put. Various chemi-
cal treatments of the pith or the fiber
will result in the several products named,
and. according to the st. Louis gentle
man, in each instance a a cost below that
of similar products manufactured from
the materials now used.
All of this may sound chimerical to the
average reader. But it must be remem-
bered that wonderful results along various
lines Of scientific endeavor haze been ar
rived at lately, and that it is not safe to
doubt prematurely the claims of scieh-
lists in these days of x-rays, animated
pictures and talking machines