Farms of Future to Have Giant Stock (Aug, 1935)
Source: Science And Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Aug, 1935
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Farms of Future to Have Giant Stock
WHAT will future ages do for food?
Some have suggested that the chemists will set up huge machines, to turn out proteins, starches, sugars, fats and vitamins, which will be taken in suitable “tabloid” doses daily by the population; that instead of farms, we will have only great chemical works, full of vats and tanks, while the outdoors is used for parking purposes exclusively.
At the recent meeting of the American Chemical Society, however, a less mechanical proposition was suggested; that, after all, plants and animals are the most efficient laboratories for the production of certain complicated organic chemicals. Instead of reducing production, we will increase it; except that, as the inventor of the steam shovel made only a super-spade, biologists will breed us super-cows, just as much more
effective. Plants, also, we may suppose, will be developed for optimum economy; putting as much as possible into fruit and as little as necessary into inedible stalks and roots. The weather, too, will be regulated: a variation in the amount of ozone in the air (done by electricity) will cut off or let through more sunlight, as the crops require. Let it not be supposed that this revolution completely does away with machinery; but the super-horse is a machine as powerful as the truck, and consuming fuel which can be raised locally. The whole, as a picture of agriculture in the year 2035, has been presented by our interplanetary artist, Paul, after reading the prophetic address of Chemist Thomas Midgley, and Wells’s “Food of the Gods.”
2035? That’s only a little more than a quarter century away now. Better get working on those giant plants and animals!
Comment by Anne — September 17, 2008 @ 11:34 pm
To state the obvious; super-sized animals would collapse under their own weight. The strength of their legs would increase by the square (cross sectional area), while the the weight of the animal would increase by the cube.
No need to worry about “Atomic” sized ants any more (for all you fans of bad 50’s SciFi.
Comment by Hip2b2 — September 18, 2008 @ 4:03 am
The farm trucks aren’t even the 1935 state of the art- doorless cabs, artillery wheels and solid tires were already on their way out by the early ’30s.
Comment by nlpnt — September 18, 2008 @ 9:04 am
I bet those super horses and cows would produce a lot of super poop.
Comment by slim — September 18, 2008 @ 10:21 am
Imagine where this could lead . . . .
http://www.wwj.com/FDA-Conside.....od/2990738
Comment by Don — September 18, 2008 @ 11:15 am
And to think this article was published 3 full years *before* the invention of LSD-25!
Comment by LightningRose — September 18, 2008 @ 2:45 pm
Sleeper!
Comment by Kruk — September 18, 2008 @ 4:29 pm
Super cows, super horses . . .. BAH!! I’m still waiting for my autogyro promised to me by 2001 back in 1948!
Rick
Comment by Rick — September 18, 2008 @ 5:11 pm
Don’t most stories involving giant livestock/crops feature the huge goodies being inedible?
Comment by Jon — September 18, 2008 @ 11:09 pm
Yes, the tomatoes would need tough thick skin to prevent them bursting under their own weight. The ozone generator sounds like a good idea though, even if it does resemble The Wicker Man with a bowler hat.
Comment by Jim Devlin — September 19, 2008 @ 8:53 am
In the 1970’s, Woody Allen released a movie called “Sleeper,” I only remember the giant chicken and celery– what were the other giant produce?
Comment by Tracy B. — September 25, 2008 @ 3:33 pm