Abstract
THE interdependence of industry and agriculture is gradually gaining wider recognition, but current conceptions of agriculture are largely dominated by inherited views of its functions. In this spirited forecast of the possibilities of an era in which alcohol will largely displace petrol and other hydrocarbons as fuel for the internal combustion engine, as a result of developments from the discoveries of Bergius on the hydration of cellulose and Hertz on the isolation of α-cellulose from wood pulp, the author discards such conceptions. The production of food, he suggests, is a purely secondary matter. A fifth of those engaged at present in agriculture could supply all our needs in respect of food and clothing. Agriculture's main business in the future should be the provision of raw materials for industry, especially raw alcohol, or as he terms it, "agricrude alcohol", and the crops to be cultivated should be determined primarily by industrial needs.
Prosperity Beckons:
Dawn of the Alcohol Era. By Dr. William J. Hale. Pp. viii + 201. (Boston, Mass.: The Stratford Co., 2 dollars.
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[Short Notices]. Nature 140, 637 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/140637c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/140637c0