Magic In Agriculture (1946)

h [Music] ladies and gentlemen you are about to see the most Stupify magic show ever performed startling tricks that defy the imagination watch closely everybody I take this plain piece of newspaper and roll it into a comb and here a full picture of milk I slowly pour into the conb I shall now stare with my magic wand tap it and now a beautiful bouquet of flowers the milk is Spanish the magic cooking pot empty well to cook we need a little heat what do we use for heat ah this piece of paper will do I light a match I wonder what's cooking let's see the wonderful squared Circle the square is empty the circle is empty too a few magic words Alakazam alakazoom Abracadabra and behold silks from nowhere how's that maybe there's more Magic In The Box let's see ah yes a rabbit but it's not alive maybe my magic hat can help me it's empty but don't worry I will bring this rabbit to life here it is my rabbit Tommy Martin how dare you play tricks with my darling little popey D Mom how was it did you like it Uncle Jim I'll say I did Tommy was worth coming all the way back here for it just to see that show well Jim we're glad something brought you back good to have all of us together again it sure is you know seems just like yesterday we were kids playing together on the farm and getting into Mischief you remember when we went over to McGee's barn and yes but you're looking at solid upstanding citizens why Bill's done such a good job selling farm machinery he's just added a new display room on his store unfed well we call Fred the an man like that fellow on the radio as our County agent he's still just as interested in learning new things as when Miss Otis taught him Reading Writing and arting Good Old Miss ois say what was it we used to call her never mind Jim you never were a very good example for the children then or now I'd say oh Mom Uncle Jim is so a good example exle I want to be like Uncle Jim when I grow up well what makes you say that I don't know exactly Uncle Jim I guess it's because you make things it's not like farming is it Uncle Jim yeah what's going on here well Jim Tommy's beginning to think that after he finishes school in the University he won't want to become a farmer he's going to be a magician no I'm not I want to work in a great big Factory the way you do Uncle Jim if you ask me Tommy you better stick to farming but Uncle Jim why you're not sorry are you I should say not I like to make things people use that's what I mean Uncle Jim you but Tommy you've got the same opportunity in agriculture and there's a new future in farming oh shucks farming's nothing but the same old corn and weat every year and it always will be I don't go along with you there Tommy but Uncle Jim someday we're not going to need nearly so many farmers anymore dad you said that to many towy didn't you wait a minute Tommy we may not need so many farmers to raise food in the future as your dad said but we'll definitely need a new kind of farm a kind I think you'd like to be because there's magic in the crops he grows you know about that Tommy we've talked about soybeans and how they're used to make many things that's what your Uncle Jim means by today Tommy there are thousands of farm Acres that are just as much a part of Industry as any Foundry or assembly line oh come on Uncle Jim dad's got over a 100 acres and I bet there isn't one that's really part of Industry like you say well what do you do with a boy like this take him up on it go ahead Jim all right Tommy I'll take that bet now uh first you'll admit won't you that there are many things on farms that have always been used for other purposes than food all right let's take an example or two Vines were used to bind early tools and you know how long trees have been used for shelter animal fats were used to make soaps and candles and animal wool and plant fibers to make clothing but man's needs became bigger and bigger Goods had to be manufactured in Greater quantity and greater variety industry's demand for raw materials increased many times research enabled agriculture to why a great many of these raw materials right from the crops the farmers were growing now to understand how that came about it's important to know what a plant consists of cellulose and ligant form the solid framework or cell walls sugars are the main food in the plant's diet from Surplus sugars the plant forms starch which it stores for future use in the bulbs and seeds and fruits fats and oils are also produced in the plant and usually stored in the seed and then there's protein the most important part of any living cell these are the main constituents of any plant the chemist when he examines a plant tries to find New Uses either for the plant itself or the substances which compose it then he goes further and Elementary process of nature helps to explain his next step when plants are eaten by animals the animal's stomach becomes a factory which changes the plant's cellulose sugars and starches and so on into new products such as milk fat leather and wool man with his knowledge of chemistry also can change Nature's basic building material materials into new and useful products and so the ever renewable plant substances of Agriculture have become an inexhaustible supply of raw materials for industry and this is the idea we call Farm Cy but now Tommy let's come back to that old corn you think so little of why that crop gives us almost all our starch takes a million and a half acres of corn alone as many acres as the whole state of Delaware to give us all the starch we need and no wonder industry in this country uses 1 b600 million pounds of starch every year your mother can tell you about starching your laundry well in our big cities commercial laundries use enormous quantities of starch and even more starch is used in the manufacturer of cloth itself starch gives cotton threads resistance to abrasion and the necessary strength to withstand the tension of the loom without starch the iron would unravel and break the loom would be stopped starch is also used in the paper industry starch binds the pulp fibers and strengthens the sheet so that it can withstand the manufacturing processes that follow and in order to cast metal for instance in the mass production of automobile and airplane engine sand mixed with starch is placed around a pattern this mixture when baked makes a permanent mold thanks to the adhesive property of the starch and starch is even present in the medicine cabinet it's The Binding material in tablets which holds the medicinal ingredients together then there's a new and growing industry that deals in prepared foods it uses 2 50 million PBS of starch each year prepared foods like puddings custards soups sauces and salad dressings contain starch as a thickening agent in short starch is an important industrial raw material and nature alone has been able to provide it but the camer just isn't satisfied to stop with starch through kemy this same starch can be used to produce sugars and so we get other important industrial raw materials corn syrup and a pure sugar called dextrose these are used in tremendous quantities by the prepared food industry for canning baking candy ice cream and soft drinks of all kinds and believe it or not there's this kind of sugar in cigarettes too besides flavoring the tobacco the sugar helps to retain moisture a solution of dextrose or glucose as it's sometimes called is often injected directly into the bloodstream when strength must be rebuilt quickly today injections of dextrose are routine treatments in Surgical and injury cases and the corn kernel holds still more magic it contains an interesting protein called Zen with many uses in Industry Zen when mixed with alcohol and rosin can be made into a liquid more economical than shellac and used for coating floors and wood surfaces as part of the materials which go into the making of phonograph records Zen helps to hold the shape and strength of the finished disc printing inks made with Zen dry quickly speeding production from the presses you see Tommy in just the tiny corn kernel the farmer grows essential raw materials like starch syrup sugar and Zen for many Industries you're a magician how's that for magic that's something all right Jim you mention a good number of Industries but you forgot one I can think of right away tractors no Tommy but dealing in power equipment I'm bound to know something about the oil industry you know you couldn't drive an automobile or a tractor without Fuel and lubricating oils these of course come from natural petroleum deposits deep in the Earth but here again starch is used as the drill bites deeper and deeper a drilling fluid is used to lubricate the drill head and to prevent overheating but this fluid tends to seep away through the sides of the well weakening the walls so that they may even Collapse by adding starch to the drilling fluid the sides of the well are sealed fluid loss and the danger of collapse are prevented farm equipment retailers are putting corn cops to work when the cobs are ground up and mixed with rice hulls we get a soft grit blasting material this will do a thorough job of removing the hard thick carbon deposits on cylinders pistons and bearings without the danger of pitting the highly polish surfaces that's the way I did the last overhaul on your dad's tractor engine Tommy speaking of of tractors you know there are certain engine parts like gears gaskets and insulating materials which could very well come from the farm and Tommy that starts us off on another magic crop cotton seems a long way from cotton to gears in a tractor for instance but today cotton is put to all sorts of other uses besides clothing when layers and layers of cotton fabric coated with a plastic material are treated with heat and pressure we get a solid plastic which is extremely strong but also extremely light it can replace lightweight metals to make an endless number of things and today there is even a new use for the shorter cotton lint fibers unsuited for spinning these are made into bats used to insulate against heat and cold in the walls and roofs of buildings and in refrigerated Freight cars where their lightweight is an advantage cotton linters the extremely short fibers adhering to the seed were until recently practically useless they too have become important not because they are fibers but because they are about 80% cellulose when these cellulose Rich linters are treated with different acid acids new raw materials result when cellulose acetate is made into a thick liquid and forced into the air through tiny holes it will form threads which when woven give us all sorts of rayon Fabrics from these cellulose raw materials we also make Motion Picture films plastic articles of enormous variety quick drying lacquers which speed up mass production in many Industries and explosives with hundreds of farm uses the Dairy Farmer too plays his part in Industry from the many millions of pounds of skim milk available each year a protein called casine can be separated casine because of its adhesive property is made into a waterresistant glue and it also finds use in water paints as a binder for the color pigment large quantities are used to coat special printing papers so that they will take ink properly and to make Plastics used primarily for buttons buckles knitting needles and novelties of all kinds a brand new product from casine is a fiber called arlac with most of the qualities of wool when mixed with other fibers arac can be woven into a variety of attractive Fabrics which Give us new and different effects of course corn and cotton and milk are obvious things for the cemes to work on but maybe we're overlooking some things that are often discarded on a farm there is an awful lot of residue on a farm some 200 million tons every year about 2 tons of residue for every ton of food produced say yeah don't forget residue isn't necessarily waste after all I use my cor stocks and my straw in many ways but I do think we Farmers should take stock and see if we're putting our residue to its best use Bill told us already there are industrial uses for corn carbs and I've heard there's even a use for chicken feathers they're beginning to make them into another new yarn also like wool that's good for all sorts of clothing and Industry uses a lot of wheat straw each year about 500,000 turns go to make paper corrugated fiber board for shipping cases cardboard for egg case fillers and building board building boards are also made from corn stocks and the stocks of the sugar cane straw and stalks contain large amounts of cellulose which we know as a basic raw material for many products so far we've talked about staple crops and farm residents Fred how about telling us a little about some of the new experimental crops that are being developed well there are several 100,000 kinds of plants growing all over the world only about 15,000 of them were originally found in the United States experts believing that many foreign plants might have good possibilities in our own country began a number of years ago to bring them here from all over the world for experiment testing and development from China came the tongue tree and from northern Europe The Rake plant the industrial value of these plants is chiefly in their oils India contributed a p-bearing plant called gu a starch-like material in its seed can be used to make papers cosmetics and many drugstore products and from Russia came a dandelion called KAG sagis which has rubber in its roots two large rubber companies have already made tires from this rubber from China came another promising plant called Ry fibers from the Ry stock are used in sales because they are strong and light and they are used to make Marine ropes Nets and fishing lines because they are stronger wet than dry and will not rock crops with names like Ry gu and The Others May not seem very important to most formers right now but think what it would mean to the cotton form or the wheat form form if any of today's new crops could turn out to be a profitable secondary crop do the job the soybean does for the corn Farmers while within the memory of all of us except Tommy or sue the soybean was a new crop just like those others in 1925 farmers were growing 5 million bushes in 1945 soybean production reached 200 million bushes and so today the soybean is one of America's major crops besides its importance for animal and human nutrition the soybean has found all sorts of industrial uses automobile production is a good illustration of its versatility soybean oil is used as a binder for the sand molds in The Foundry a material removed from the bean is used in car liting horn buttons light switch covers window trim are all made of soybean meal and now they developed a fiber from the soybean protein that can be used for upholstering the soybeans record from new crop to major crop in 25 years might well be repeated with some of today's new crops bringing New Opportunities and new sources of income to the farmer and here's something to remember the soybean only became a major crop after suitable harvesting equipment was developed that's why the farm equipment industry is constantly studying new crops to anticipate the farm Farmers needs for new Machinery yes it's through cooperation like that between farmers and Industry and government that chemy will achieve still further goals in the future scientists are constantly at work to plan needed research This research is carried out by hundreds of industrial Labs State agricultural colleges and by the four large Regional Research Laboratories of the United States Department of Agriculture these lab were set up in 1938 to study new uses for farm products in each region here is one of these 2 million laboratory One Wing is devoted entirely to test tube research where new comeric ideas are first develop here scientists conduct an endless variety of experiments to analyze different plants and develop their industrial possibilities promising lab discoveries must can be proved practical for commercial manufacturing so in the other Wing is the pilot plan actually a well equipped Factory that Bridges the gap between the test tube and the commercial use Factory equipment is used to test on a commercial scale the new products and methods of manufacture discovered in the laboratory in addition many industrial companies use their regular commercial machines for tests on a still larger scale Clearing House for all information about keric research and achievements is an organization of industrialists farmers and scientists called the national Farm keric Council so thanks to scientific research in which industry has played a tremendous part Farm chemy in a very few years has grown from just an idea to a well accepted fact and Fred in addition to research there are two industries the petroleum industry and the farm machinery industry that play a direct role in the development of kemy we know that kemy depends on efficient farming the farmer knows that efficient farming depends on mechanical Power Power helps him to take care of his soil power helps him to grow better crops and to grow them more profitably and because of mechanical tools and power Farmers today are able to get bigger yields from each acre of land this means that we can grow enough food to take care of our needs and still have fertile land left to grow crops for industry mechanical Power has also made Manpower available for this new work one man today with the proper equipment can do the work which required many men just a few years ago the farm machinery companies have been working constantly to develop new Mach maches and to improve the equipment at the farmer's disposal they have developed high compression engines of Greater efficiency to save the farmer time and money on every job he does high compression engines designed to burn gasoline for greater convenience and economy the oil companies have also been carrying on a continuous research program to supply better products for the farm not only have they improved gas gasoline to run the high compression engines but better oils and greases and gear lubricants to prolong the life of all equipment and new products to help the farmer in many ways rust preventatives stock sprays insecticides to name just a few all Industries are vitally interested in the future of Agriculture they know that the prosperity in the future of our entire country is based on a sound prosperous agriculture that's why businessmen bankers and manufacturers are all working with us in the development of farm chemery I guess not one of us here in this room has any doubts now that industry needs and uses farm products and since that's the case we know the farmer actually does play a part in making things just as any man in the fact sure and once more form chemy has opened up a whole new future for form while the research that's going on in our Labs isn't just for today it's for tomorrow the next day and a 100 years from now when agriculture will be called upon to supply a still larger part of industry's need and farm chemy means all sorts of new products that make living more comfortable and more attractive it means more people working both in industry and agriculture are you beginning to get the idea Tommy you are it means a farmer like Dad who growing Magic crops that's right Tommy I guess you could change a handful of soybeans into a necktie by slight of hand but think of it cam actually does it say why does anyone around here ask me about those packages I brought along what's happened to Children nowadays are they getting too polite when I was your age I was curious when any grownup arrived with a package I figured it might be something for me here's some material sue your mother can make you a new dress then you can tell your friends you're all dressed up in skim milk Tommy here's a tie that was really made from soybeans I guess that's magic all right he Tommy you bet Dad by the way Tommy didn't you lose a bet to your Uncle Jim you said there was an acre on our farm that was a part of Industry remember I guess you're right Dad but we're Partners now Tommy you're Agriculture and I'm industry you don't owe money between part okay industry I'll shake on that [Music] [Applause]