As a Farm Woman Thinks

By Mrs. A.J. Wilder

Gnawing away at the mountains of shale near Denver, is a machine that eats rocks, transforming them into oil, paraffin, perfumes, dyes, synthetic rubber, in all 155 different products, including gasoline and lubricating oils. The separating of the shale rock into these elements is done by heat generated by oil burners, and there is absolutely no waste, for the refuse, dumped out at the back of the machine is made up of hydro-carbons of great commercial value.

The story of this rock eating monster is worthy of a place with the tales brought to Europe by travelers in India who first saw cotton and sugar cane. They told that in that strange land were “plants that bore wool without sheep and reeds that bore honey without bees.”

The first cotton cloth brought to Europe came from Calicut and was called calico. Only kings and queens could afford to wear it.

Arabs brought the lumps of sweet stuff, like gravel, that they called “sukkar.” This was so scarce and precious in Europe that it was prescribed as medicine for kings and queens when they were ill.

From the days when sugar and cotton were such wonders to the time when a machine crushes rocks and from them distils delicate perfumes and beautiful colors has not been so very long when measured by years, but measured by the advance of science and invention it has been a long, long way. Looking forward, we stand in awe of the future wondering if the prophecy of Berchelot, the great French chemist will be fulfilled. He says the time will come when man by the aid of chemistry, will take his food from the air, the water and the earth without the necessity of growing crops or killing living creatures; when the earth will be covered with grass, flowers and woods among which mankind will live in abundance and joy.

This is far in the future and almost impossible of belief, but that which is the wonder of one age and hardly believable is the common place of the next. We go from achievement to achievement, and no one knows the ultimate heights the human race may reach.

Mrs. A.J. Wilder. "As a Farm Woman Thinks." Missouri Ruralist (June 15, 1921): page unknown.  CLICK HERE to see this article as it originally appeared in the Missouri Ruralist.

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