The National tribune., 1906-12-27
A FREE ALCOHOL DANGER.

FREE ALCOHOL DANGER.
A whole lot of meretricious stuff is
being published in the pa ers abou,
the great advantages to farmers from
the Free Alcohol bill, and there have
been several bills introduced into Con-
gress to enable farmers to set up stills
on their farms and turn their waste
products into alcohol. This is mainly
delusion and a snare, and it could he
dismissed without much thought ex-
cept for the danger that sharpers will
take advantage of this as they have of
previous agitations about sugar and
other farm products to inveigle farmers
into buying costly apparatus and waste
time and labor upon an enterprise that
will inevitably be a total loss. We see
much in the papers about cornstalks,
corncobs and other waste products be-
ing converted into sufficient alcohol TO
give light, fuel and motive power for
a farm. and we have heard from Ger
many about the success there of farm
distilleries. This is the most utter nom
sense and will, if persisted in, be very
costly experiments for our farmers. AS
a matter of fact, nothing can be con-
verted into alcohol except something
which has more value as feed and for.
age for animals. Any farmer who has
on his farm products from which alcO-
hol can be made can realize far better
profit from it by feeding it to his pigs
and cattle than ne can by distilling it.
Alcohol can certainly be made from
cornstalks, corncobs, chips, blocks, hay,
grass, ETC., but to do this involves the
highest chemical skill, an immense
amount of labor and a perfection of
apparatus. A man who can convert
these things into alcohol can easily
command a salary of $4,000 a year
from a big distillery. Distilleries are on
the lookout for men who have this rare
skill. Distillation is a very high art,
and a man who can produce so much
as one per cent more alcohol from a
given amount of stuff can command
any salary that he pleases. There is
do lliuNh StiiSt III ldihluS dDouI ii
er producing his own alcohol as there
would be about his grinding his own
grain. OF course, any farmer can grind
his own wheat if he chooses. but he
finds it a great deal more profitable to
send his wheat to Minneapolis, where a
skiiful miller can get great deal more
-four out of the wheat than he can. 1t
will pay him much better to get fun
price for his grain and then pay the
miller his price for the -four. The mill
er will make money in the operation,
but the farmer will, too. Distillation is
much more complicated and difficult
operation than grinding. All alcohol
comes from starch. The thing to pro-
duce alcohol must therefore have starch
In it or, as in the case of wood, be
capable of producing starch by proper
chemical treatment. The cheapest
source of alcohol in the world is corn
the kernels of which are mainly starch
With corn as high as so cents a bushel
the great dIstilleries at Peoria can pro-
duce alcohol cheaper than any other
manufacturers in the world. The Ger
mans would have to get their potatoes
as low as Is cents a bushel in order to
compete with them. Other materials
which contain starch in less quantities
than corn and which are not nearly so
easily handled are, of course, much
more expensive sources of alcohol than
corn. The farmer who is being told
that he can take up all sorts of refuse
from his farm and convert it into alco-
hol is simply being deluded. If he had
all the skill of the high-priced distill-
ers, who are employed because they can
produce results. yet the labor and an
noysnce of handling this refuse stuff
and conducting it carefully thru tho
various processes of fermentation would
make his alcohol cost him very much
more than it can be produced by the
distilleries, and consequently he would
be at a continual disadvantage, conduct.
ing the business at the greatest loss.