The Topeka state journal., 1906-06-12
ALCOHOL THE BENEFTCENT.


If denatured alcohol comes halfway
up to its advance notices, life on the
farm is about to take on a new glamor
Rural free delivery, the rural telephone
and other modern improvements have
done much to make farm life pleasanter,
but if the predictions about denatured
alcohol are true it viii do fully as much
as these other agencies.
Not only will it furnish an additional
market for many farm products, but it
viii enter directly into farm life. The
farmer will be able to make his own
alcohol, and it will heat his house, cook
his meals, and run his machinery. There
will be no more chopping wood or haul
ing coal. It won't be necessary to get
up on cold winter mornings and labor
long to start a fire when everything in
the house Is frozen solid. The tank of
alcohol, connected with the stoves by
pipes, will keep the fires going at all
times, or they can be started by simply
striking a match. The farmers wife
won't have to work over a red-hot cook
stove during the boiling summer days.
Alcohol will make as good a summer
fire for her as gasoline or gas does for
her city sister. An alcohol motor will
pump the water do the churning, grind
the feed, and do all sorts Of things.
Doubtless the time will come when
many farmers will have automobiles,
and they will make the alcohol with
which to run them. It will run the
threshing machines, and for those farm
ers who do things on a big scale, it will
doubtless haul gang-plows and other
machinery.
It is asserted too, that extracting the
alcohol from corn and other grains does
not interfere at all with it's value for
feeding purposes. The alcohol is of no
value as feed anyway. It is said that at
the Walker distilleries. across the river
from Detroit, five or six thousand head
Of cattle are fattened continuously on
the corn mash that comes from the dis
tiI1eries after the alcohol has been ex-
tracted from the orn.
It is said that no costly machinery
is necessary for making alcohol It is
not even necessary to make it on large
scale. So simple is the process of ex-
tracing alcohol, it is predicted that
every farmers silo viii become an al
cohol distillery by the simple addition
Of steam pipes to heat the fermented
contents to q sufficient temperature to
/ give off the light gas which, precipitat-
/ ed by passing through cooling tables.
/ becomes alcohol.
1t is said that the actual cost of
manufac curing the alcohol ranges from
to Is cents a gallon and the amount
of heat energy in a gallon, combined
with its cheapness, makes alcohol tn e
most desirable known substitute for
coal and oil products. The part the
farmer is to have in Its general intro
duction for fuel and light is to be seen
from figures made on the yield Of alco-
hol from various farm products.
An acre of ground planted to corr
| Will yield 14O gallons One yielding
500 bushels of the ordinary potato viii
give 245 gallons. and It is said there
are varieties Of potatoes not suited tc
the table and not now grown which
would give as high as 500 gallons OF
alcohol to the acre. The sweet potato
IS also a yielder of high percentage
as is also the sugar beet. The corr
stalks grown on an acre of ground and
at present wasted, are said to be capa-
BILE Of producing ITO gallons of COM
I mercial alcohol. Almost everything
growa on the farms IS available for its
manufacture and it is to be expected
that with the removal Of the tax and
the wider Introduction Of the alcohol
for light heat and power. a distiller5
[ for its manufacture viii become il
: time as fixed a feature Of every farm