The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1939-02-02
Scientific Age
Just Starting,
SavantsClai
Tomorrow's Farmer Will
Guide Tractor From
His Front Porch

Soap1ess soap, smokeless
powder from cottonseed, iceless
ice, fertilizer from the air,
wool without benefit of sheep,
rubberless rubber, sponges
from cotton and wood-.hese
miracles are today taking form
in sciences test-tubes and cru
cibles.
A myriad of other develop
ments, equally spectacular,
will soon take place in farming,
home design, transportation,
food distribution and architec-
ture, if we take the word of the
worlds leading scientists and
industrial engineers.
Stimulated by wide interest
in the world of tomorrow
these scientific gentlemen are do
ing extensive crystal gazing nova
DAYS and their predictions, based on
experience gained In America eff
ficient industrial laboratories, give
a Kaleidoscope picture of our civil
Iization a decade or so from now.
Factory machinery, for instance,
will "eat" more agricultural prod
ucts than will be consumed as food,
officials of leading chemical COM
panies assert. The tremendous de-
mands upon the farm which viii
be made by manufacturers of plas-
tics, synthetic yarns and similar
substitutes, will result IN an entirely
new concept Of agriculture.
Gasoline From Potatoes.
Alcohol motor fuel will be made
from naolasses, corn, Irish and
sweet potatoes or from artichokes,
DR.. w. L. Owen, a Baton Rouge
consulting bacteriologist, has pre-
dicted. eve can establish" he de-
clared, can 'agroP motor fuel IN
dustry that will enormously enrich
the farmer without any imposition
whatever on the motorist."
All Great Britain's food require
ments could be produced on a small
part of the soil of the British isles IN
the light of even today's knowledge,
Bertrand Russell, eminent British
scientist recently wrote. The Sa-
hara desert, he said, can be made
fertile by preventing evaporation Of
the dew. I'm a slightly more dis
tant future" he said, there Is the
possibility Of synthetic food, which
would destroy the necessity for az
ricuIture, and thus transform poll
tics and social Life.
Picture the comfortable Life of to-
norrow's farmer, taking things
easy on the porch while directing
tractor across his fields by pressing
a series of buttons. Such a tractor
system is being developed by Robert
Mize, of Earlimart, Calf.
With another set of buttons the
farmer may be able to fertilize his
acreage by passing electric currents
through the soil. Experiments along
these lines by the Boyce Thompson
Institute have increased yields of
corn, strawberries and cabbages by
as much as 20 per cent.
A Glass Age Ahead.
Farm products will be hauled to
city markets on glass highways, ac-
cording to DR.. John F. Cation, direc-
tor of research engineering for the
Chrysler corporation. Glass springs
for beds, glass radio sets, glass roof
shingles and glass razor blades were
also envisioned by DR.. Cation.
As a matter of fact, scientists re-
fer to the coming era as the 'sglass
age" particularly In respect to the
home and architecture generally.
Architects viii specify glass walls
for American homes-walls which
may disappear into the floor at the
turn of a crank, John D. Biggers,
president of Libbey-Owens- Ford
glass company last month told
convention of woodwork jobbers.
Windows viii be lowered and raised
by pressing a button, he predicted,
and the typical house of tomorrow
will have a roof of the new heat-ab-
sorbing plate glass, which absorbs
infra-red rays of the sun.
The cult of light and sunshine
apparently is spreading to autono-