The coastland times. [volume] (Mnateo [i.e. Manteo], N.C.) 1947-1959, 1953-11-13

not Deen MADE.
Just few years ago when cor
tisone was first produced from
OK bile by costly process requir-
ing thirty-seven different and ex-
pensive chemical steps, it be-
came known that kinds of Stro-
phanthus, a West African vine,
contained the steriods from
which cortisone might be made.
But not enough knowledge of the
vine existed. No one could be
sure whether the roots, the bark,
the leaves, the flowers or the
fruit should be harvested, and no
one knew anything of its agri-
culture.
This is but a single example.
Dozens Of important medicines
for human and animal healing
are derived from plants. Have
we found them all? Should we
be content to suffer from colds
or cancer without making certain
that a cure does not grow wild
in the woods or the fence cor
ners? Should we ignore 99qo of
the vegetable kingdom, even
though tools await for its ex-
ploration, without knowing what
new nutriments, what new fla
vors, what new economics and
conveniences may emerge from
comprehensive inquiries?
l plead only that some COM
petent agency, government or
private, shall undertake to ex-
anime infinitely all the kinds OF
plants that grow and to find out
what they contain. 1 think it in
conceivable that no profitable
discoveries will emerge. l am sure
that the records of such an ex-
ploration would prove invaluable
in the future, even though few
immediate values were discover
ed. The job can be done for no
more than a million dollars year
and would take only a few years
to complete.
If out of such research were
found a new crop or crops to oc-
cupy fifteen or twenty per cent
of the present American wheat
acreage, or of the cotton acreage,
our costly and eXtravagant deal
ings with those SURPRISES could
be forgotten. One crop, old in
Asia but new in America, has
taken over so many acres that
one can hardly imagine what the
dimensions of the corn and oats
so-called SURPRISES might now be
had the soybean not been in
troduced.
To glance for moment at the
present, it is enough to remark
that from the few crop species
yet in cultivation, we have done
fairly we'll finding values in the
inedible portions. Corn cobs and
oathulls turn into furfural and
that becomes nylon. Corn pro-
teins, edible perhaps but more
valuable otherwise, are being
made into vicara, a lovely fiber
now sold in thousand fabrics.
Surplus vegetable oils and ami
NAL fats, at present soybean oil
at the beginning rate of twenty
million pounds a year, are oxi-
died into an amazing new plas-
itching material. Paints and var
nishes, adhesives and cosmetics,
and hundreds of both ultimate
and intermediate purposes are
now met by utilizing the less
edible or inedible portions of
plants.
Each one of these uses makes
more stable the food supply of
mankind. The more a farmer can
get for his corn cobs, the more
lnducement he will have to grow
corn.
The greater the repertoire of
crops available to cultivation, the
more perfectly each crop win be-
come attached to it's most suit
able soil. The wider the choice
farmers may exercise among pro-
fitable crops to grow, the fewer
will be the problems of surplus
and the greater will be agricuI-
tural income.
The larger income farmers can
earn, the more precious will be-
come the soil and the more inn
portant the waters will be. Richer
farmers will take better care of
their land, because the will have
more capital and more incentive
to invest in its improvement.
1t is high time to bring the
green frontiers of the vegetable
kingdom out of the stone age into
the twentieth century, and to
find what rich countrysides they
may disclose!
In World War II there were
about $4,000 battle deaths of
Americans in the nacific area