The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1939-1949, 1941-09-11
Skim-Milk Suits,
Soy Bean Autos
Future Possibilities
Factories to make in
Vulnerable articles of
products of the farm
BY H. w. DERRY
Manager, New Industries Dept.
Pacific Power & Light Company

What would you think if you read
a story which started out something
like this:
"The man flicked speck of dust
from the shoulder of his skim milk
suit, adjusted his skim milk hat and
stepped into his soybean automo-
bile, after admiring the glisten of it's
peanut oil paint. He thought of his
new corncob office desk and chair
as the guayule tires of his car hum
med along the cotton-bound road"
Fanciful? Not at all. ALI these
products have been or can be pro-
duced. They are the type of thing
that lend point to the program of the
farm chemurgy movement.
Agricultural wastes alone, waiting
to be put to some useful, wealth.
creating purpose, are measured in
the hundreds of millions of tons.
Surplus products, their former mar
kets destroyed by war, add other mil
lions of tons to the materials that
await the touch that will make them
useful.
And that is the job that the farm
chemurgistS have picked out Tor
themselves. How well they are sue
ceeding can he readily judged 10y a
few examples.
The soybean, wonder crop of the
century, probably heads the list of
chemurgic advances in the public
mind because it is the one whose
Cinderella story has been most pub
Hcized. Scarcely known outside of
Asia only Is years ago, it is now a
major u. IS. farm crop with produc-
ton reaching 80 million bushels.
Its uses, both actual and poten-
tial, can be counted in the scores,
have doubled in the past five years
alone. Probably it is best known as
a basis for plastics, the magic new
type Of material now making giant
strides in our industrial world. Mo
tor car manufacturers are reported
experimenting with plastic bodies for
their product and already employ
plaStics for wide variety of trims
and gadgets.
The old familiar castor bean and
it's oil, whose very name used to
make little boys behave, are follow
ing close ON the heels of the soy
bean after a regeneration resulting
from discovery of their industrial
usefulness. Soy, castor, peanut, cot
fnfo Good ond q 1nrocr lief oil on
ricultural oils by new processes are
rapidly becoming drying oils essen
tial to the paint industry. .
And, looking close at home, there's
milk. Nearly 40 billion pounds of
skim milk for which there is no
market are produced by this nations
dairy industry. But from skim milk
is made casein, a somewhat fabu-
lous product in its own right.
Last year 5000 pounds of casein
fiber went into felt for hat-making.
1t also can be made into cloth which
resembles wool suiting for mems
clothing. A paint in pastel colors
for indoor use, which requires only
the addition of cold water to prepare
for use, is another caSein product.
Or there's casein glue and a host
of other products.
What about the pudding served
with dinner? Although much of the
starch from which it was made is
produced from American corn, mil
lions of pounds were imported from
tropic areas to fill the demand. New
sweet potatoes are being proceSsed
to produce starch in the southern
states with good results. White po-
tatoes may offer another field for
starch production to help the nation
achieve self-sufficiency in this item.
In the field of utilization of waste
and by-productS of agriculture, the
Use of peach pits to produce activat-
I'd carbon for gas masks is an ex-
ample.
Among the chemurgic advances
hat have been made in the third
field of endeavor, introduction of
new crops to fill existing needs, can
De listed a long range of herbs and
plants which produce essential oils |
;or drugs, aromaticS and the like.
Coriander, sage, anise, caraWay, per-
LA, foXglove, mustard-the list is
ong.
Most of the detectives of the farm
hemurgic movement are long-ranga
pointed at establishing sound
for the nation based on
production and utilization. But the
national defense crisis is
living the movement an immediate
nance to prove it's worth by supply
ng agricultural raw materials for
to replace those which the
leeds of the nation are drafting into
he building of defense.
Thus when the sudden expansion
# the airplane program brought a
leavy demand for aluminium, new
lectric refrigerators were sent out
Without the complete number of
luminum ice trays. Plastics prob
bly, will be heavily employed in the
ubstitute trays. Similarly, other
william uses of essential materials
I'LL be and are being met by other
ubstitute materials. And frequently