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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (March 1, 1908)
THE SUJiDAY OREOOJVIAJV, rOKTLAAU, mJLKUU. i, ivJ&. ill Teach Far TTTT M OW 10 M emu A coM ( A v WW li . 1 WKSK . V r & .- - S S - . "V .-. : Uncle SanTto Erect a Model Still atWashingtbnTand ?. ' Manufacture iTHis New.Fuel and.Dluminant Three Months' Course in Distillation and Fermentation JYiU.Be GiventoStudentsFreejDfJClnarge 4 3 rr. IT si If i 1 s V ! BY JOHN ELFRETH "W ATKINS. TO start the new 'denatured alcohol" ball a-rolllng throughout the land. Dr. H. W. Wiley, the father of the pure-food law, is going to do some moon Hhinlng here In the capital of the Nation, lie told me yesterday that he will at once commence the construction of a model till, of the kind which the farmer should use on his own premises, and that from this plant he will diffuse among his fel-low-cltisens knowledge In the "art of fermentation and distillation." The revenue officials have been 'asked by Secretary Wilson to grant immunity to the jovial and witty chief of the bu reau of chemistry. This they did onca before when Dr. Wiley did a little scien tific maonshinlng out .West. Were the formality of axklng lor this" "immunity Dath" overlooked by the Secretary, Dr. Wiley would be liable to a raid, with rnnsiderable gun play on the side and a Inn term in the penitentiary, during which he would have abundant opportun ity of studying the adulteration and nu tritive value of bean soup and shark Hew.' Waste potatoes, green corn that has souroil or become too hard to sell; (polled cantaloupes, watermelons and oth er old fruits which have commenced to decay will.be purchased by Dr. Wiley in the Washington markets and converted Into the new commercial alcohol from which the government by recent legisla tion removes the revenue tax, provided that It be made repulsive to the human ense organs nt taste and smelL The still will be a model for the Ameri can farmer who wishes to learn how to manufacture this new fuel and llltiminant from wate products of the field, or chard aud vineyard. .It will have the ca j'acity to distill 100 gallons of the new spirit in eight hours. It will cost Dr. Wiley $4000, but he estimates that as soon as the manufacturers see the coming de ftnand for such small stills they will put Ithem on the market for S1000 or less. The cost of the first still of the kind will (naturally be high, since entirely new pat terns have to be made. To Teach Classes From Each State. Classes of young men will be detailed to Dr. Wiley's still from the agricultural colleges and agricultural experiment sta tions of the states. There will be room for 50 of these student distillers, one from each state and territory. Each will be given about a three months' course in fermentation and dis tillation. Dr. Wiley told me. Post-graduate students at the agricultural colleges will be preferred. Each having taken the course at the still, will go back to his state college or experiment station and b fully qualified to erect and operate such a model plant for the education of the. farmers of the state. Within the next few years there will thus be distributed among the states hundreds of young men educated to Introduce or conduct distil leries for commercial alcohol. Dr. Wiley's still will be built as near to the bureau of chemistry as he can rent the necessary building or shed. Per haps it will be erected on the Department of 'Agriculture's experimental farm over at Arlington, Va., across the Potomac. "Why haven't the farmers awakened to the advantage of denatured alcohol be fore this?" I asked Dr. Wiley. "First, because they have no knowledge whatever of distillation; second, because no one here manufactures the small stills, which will be necessary for the suc cessful manufacture of commercial alco hol on the farm. When I was abroad 1 saw many of these small stills. In France there are 27,000 little ones, called 'boilers of the crop. They are used mostly in wine making there. . Almost 'every little French vineyard has its small still. "'Our farmers haven't any idea as to what fermentation or distillation means. 'We have recently had inquiries from some of them as to whether they can make commercial alcohol out of pea vines and such impossible waste material. They have to be taught that this new fuel and illuminant can be profitably rmade only from materials containing large proportions of sugar and starch. They must learn, also, how the starch can best be converted into sugar and the sugar Into alcohol. But this knowl edge cannot be diffused except through Corps of instructors, technically trained. Take 500 American farmers and put them down In the vineyards of Bordeaux and tell them to go ahead and make wine. What kind of stuff do you think they would turn out?" "Have the big distillers commenced yet to make denatured alcohol?" "A great deal of it is now being distilled at Peoria and Terre Haute. -K sells for 40 cents a gallon. The farmer with his small still cannot manufacture it to sell cheaper than this if he uses, marketable corn, potatoes or beets. But to him the product of his little distillery will be a pure gain If he can learn to use materials that would otherwise go to waste, and If he utilizes the farm labor which he would have to pay anyhow for other purposes. Can I'se Cornstalks and Spoiled Grain. "Grain freezes by the hundreds of thou sands of bushels each year in Montana and North Dakota alone. It doesn't pay to transport it to the big distilleries. All of this spoiled grain can be converted, into commercial alcohol on the spot and the waste, or what the distillers sell as brewers' grains, will still be left as a cat- builder as the whole grain was itself, al though not so efficient as a fatte'ner." . That cornstalks as a source of alcohol supply should be started by our agricul tural experiment stations was pointed out by Dr. Wiley. Untold tons of sugar an nually, go to waste on the cornstalks of our farms the stalks of sweet corn, . field corn and sorghum. Everywhere cornstalks are cured for fodder the sugars ferment and are lost before the cattle are fed with this waste material of the fields. Inventors who can overcome the techni cal difficulties of cheaply extracting this sugar from the stalk will, Dr. Wiley said, give the country's future commercial al cohol stills an almost inexhaustible source of raw material. Stalks of sweet corn, field com and sorghum contain in addi tion to sugar, notable quantities of starch and gum which would be converted Into sugar at the distilleries. No other source of raw materials for free alcohol Is so abundant as these stalks, the doctor esti mated. The only question is how can this material be cheaply extracted. Our farmers' small stills, built after Dr. Wiley's model plant, will come under a new- class of industrial distilleries pro vided for in an amendment which Con gress last year made to the original "free alcohol law." In these stills only Indus trial alcohol may be produced, and the daily output must not be over 100 proof gallons the capacity of Dr. Wiley's pro jected plant. The bureau of Internal rev enue has made regulations which will re lieve this class of small Industrial stills of the many restrictions placed on the large distilleries. Any material may be used, and the still may be of any size, provided not over 100 "proof gallons" are produced per day. But, of course, the smallest still that can manufacture this maximum out put will be the cheapest for the farmer. Each such still must be registered, plans of the premises must be filed with the revenue bureau, a bond must be given and the distillery must then be "sur veyed" by a Government official. After this Is done the farmeidistlller may con trol - his own operations almost entirely, merely notifying the revenue collector of his district as to when work is to begin. How Farmers Will Denature Alcohol The farmer can have the "denaturing" of his alcohol done. In any quantity, on his own premises, or It can be sent to a central denaturing bonded warehouse, and there sold for denaturing purposes. If denatured on the farmer's premises . it must be so treated under the supervision of the district storekeeper gauger. If tie ood as good as a muscle and bone i shipped to the central warehouse that of- ficial must draw it into the barrels in which it ia to be shipped, and these roust be stamped by him. The chief difficulty to the farmer who wishes to establish such a still will be the restriction that his alcohol must be distilled "180 proof. This will require a certain kind of still and some special knowledge of its operation-. Were there not such restrictions the process' would be as easy as moonshiningv in which the most ignorant mountaineer easily be comes proficient. A wooden or "pot still will not answer the purpose, but a "col umn still," preferably of the "continuous type," will be necessary. It Is this lat ter class of still whose description is too technical for this article that Dr. Wiley will erect for his demonstrations. Alcohol Lamps and Stoves. The bureau of chemistry has one of the new alcohol lamps which will be seen in many an American home in the not very distant future. It looks like an ordinary kerosene lamp with a Welsbach gas man tel over the wick. What appears to be the knob for turning the wick up and down is the handle of a little pump which is pressed down two or three times with the thumb just before the lamp Is light ed. This action brings a little of the al cohol around the wick holder where it is ignited by holding a match through an opening at the side. The lamp burns with a colorless flame for the first min ute or half minute. ' Another match is then applied to the top of the chimney, Just as when a gas mantel is lighted. The alcohol vapor ignites In the same man ner as does the gas In the latter and soon heats the mantel to a white heat. The lamp then burns regularly, and with all of the brilliance of a gas mantel, without any further attention as long as any alco hol remains In the bowl. Alcohol stoves, such as are in gen eral use in Germany, convert the alcohol into a gas which Is ignited in burners. They burn with-a pale blue flame which is intensely hot and without smoke. If there is any odor about them at all, Dr. Wiley says. It Is an agreeable one. Al cohol stoves- have been Invented also for heating flatirons, soldering irons, crimping irons and for roasting coffee. It is quite certain that the use of al cohol motors on the farm will become quite common as soon as the technique of construction is practically complete and the price of alcohol is sufficiently low," said Dr. Wiley. "Alcohol can be used for all purposes for which gaso line is employed the driving of wagons, carriages, stationary motors, water pumps, mowing machines, plow?, etc. Very little change need be made In the engine of a motor car, designed to use gasoline, to fit it for the use of alcohol. Gasoline becomes volatile (evaporates rapidly) at a temperature of blood heat (98 degrees F.), while a much greater degree of heat (158 to 176 degrees F.) is necessary to vola tilize alcohol rapidly enough for motor purposes. This fact makes necessary a change in the explosion chamber of the engine when alcohol Is to be used. This adjustment is especially impor tant in the starting of the machine, as after it is in action the temperature of combustion is quite sufficient to easily produce the necessary gasification. The vapor of alcohol can be more highly compressed at any given temperature without exploding than can the vapor of gasoline." ' Alcohol Wagon Trains. The Germans use small alcohol mo tors for driving plows, mowing, reap ing and binding machines; also for chopping and grinding cattle food ana pumping water. They have developea also many kinds of alcohol automo biles, motor boats and traction en gines. The German army uses alcohol trac tion engines to draw artillery and trains of heavy military wagons for transporting all sorts of supplies. These alcohol wagon trains pull over the mountain roads and even ford streams. Some of them are drawn by detached traction engines, such as those run by steam on the farms of this country. Others are heavy automo biles with truck bodies on their own frames, and yet with trains of trans port wagons hitched on the rear. Washington. D. C, February 24. KB "i JT YOU wanter sneeze, w'y don't you sneeie?" .said the house detec tive of the Hotel St. Reckless to the hotol clerk, "you make m nervous standjji' there with your face all puckered tip." "I know," said the hotel clerk. "You see me as I am now. with my nose look ing as If she was about to jibe and cAnie about, and you dope it out that I've got one bf those double -seated, self-feeding, runabout colds-ln-the-head that have bren so juetly popular the past Winter. But not so, ljarry; not so. If I was to sneeze at this writing. It would lack practically all .of the scenic effects which are required to make a success of a sncese. It wouldn't be one of those realistic sneezes such as you'd find in a Hflasco production. The trouble with me is. Larry, I've got the scent of punk sticks up my notriLs." "I'm plenty wise to that punk stick thing,' said the house detective. "A punk stick is somethin' that bums lxe a way-statiou cigar, and smells like a dt fpctive flue in a Chinese laundry, ain't n?" "The late Noah Webster couldn't have expressed U more neatly, and Noah was the unabridged Kid," said the hotel clerk. "A punk stick is all that you have called it. and then same. My nose thinks somebody's been burning rags back of my tonsils." tiuichln' off punk slicks?" inquired the house detective. "I thought noboby but strangers in town ever went to them Bjjiony Joss-housea down In Chlnytown:" "I've been to a studio tea," explained the hotel clerk. "A studio which?" akcd the house de tective. v "A studio tea," repeated the hotel clerk. "I've been circulating, larry, among the real Byhcujiuruj IU kind that coqie from away up on the head waters of Bohemia Creek. Yessir, I've been to an intellectual orgy of those devilish artistic souls, our care-free literary giants who think so much of local color that they wear it in their collars. It's a great game." "How'd you butt in?" said the house detective. "I was Invited," said the Hotel Clerk. "This hotel is the home of so many bookmakers and others who follow a literary life that I suppose they thought that I belonged. So I got an Invitation written out in red chalk on a piece of plank. Everybody at the tea said it was one of the most artistic and Bohemian idea that was ever thought up. "It certainly was a lovely affair. It was up seven flights of stairs in a real studio. A real studio, Larry, is an at tic that has a skylight in it. instead of windows. No true Bohemian will live In an attic that has. common debasing windows in it. It would lower him in the estimation of the whole Bohemian profession. "At the door I was ushered in by a real Kast Indian, belonging to one of "the most prominent Afro-American families In Taxoo City, Miss. This quaint East ern figure was all dressed up like a sore thumb In a turban about the size of a washtub and somebody's nightshirt, with a crimson sash about the waist. I had a cup of genuine Russian tea that tasted like a throat gargle, and a slice of rye bread that appeared to be suffering from a mild outbreak of blackheads on the Inner side. That's what I thought was the matter with it at first, but latr I found out It was a caviar sandwich. There was also a most fascinating Ori ental coiy corner a crippled sofa, a Chinese back-scratcher and two paper fans tacked to the wall and a set of those spaghetti Italian portieres. Over all was the haunting odor of many punk-sticks. all burning at once. They had the smell of camphor-ball beaten to a fringe. I'll bet you there's not a live moth left in that studio, Larry.'' vt'ho wuz there?" asked the House Detective. "Anybody I know?" "No, I guess not," said the Hotel Clerk. "But there was a large attendance of leaders of the inner literary set. The punchbowl was presided over by a tall, willowy young enu who's going to break into emotional drama some day when she can catch "emotional drama with its guard down. There - was a playwright who wrote a play that Charley Frohman almost accepted, and several novelists who haven't been able to find a suitable publisher yet, and just any number of artists who patnt for art's sake alone. 4 "I met one dashing debonair Bohemian who really gets his stuff into print. He sends an article for the store where he works every month to a cloak and ladies' suiting journal. Tet for all that h6 was not unduly proud, but mingled freely with the other guests, - dropping, here an epigram, there a flake, of dandruff, and here again an original saying that I hadn't heard for years, and all right out of his own head. . "Oh, yes, and there was a talented vocalist who stood up alongside the piano and gave off a -large volume of sound. Sometimes it seemed to me he was imi tating a coon dog on a warm trail, and sometimes he sounded like a trained seal that's been cheated out of Its share of the fish. But one oT the regular Bohemians told me that he was singing a folk-song In his native tongue. The regular Bo hemian said It was great, but as for me, the next time I'm going to have any of that brand of tongue, I'd like for it to be potted." "I'll bet New York is the only town in the country where they pull off fool stunts like the one you've just been to," said the House Detective. "By no .means," said the Hotel Clerk. "It's a bum community indeed these times that hasn't got a group of free, un trammeled souls that love to assemble at the house of some kindred spirit and drink bottled beer and ask each other if they've read 'Three Weeks' yet. All you need for a starter is a queen-mother of the local ostrich hrd who Is reliably re ported to have smoked a cigarette nearly all the way down and a rollicking young assistant organist who wears long hair and 4 an Elbert Hubbard npektie, and you've got the start for a little Bohemian circle right there. 'But in New York more people work at the trade, and It pays better here than anywhere else. It's a funny thing. Larry, if a man works in a drugstore or a pie foundry or any other mere sordid com mercial establishment and acquires a breath like a cellarette at night and a subway entrance in the morning, and if he begins to look as if he dressed up while lying down, and if he forgets to wash his neck, and if he neglects his dandruff cure until his coat collar looks like a Christmas card, we diagnose it as a case of clandestine pickles and give him the disciplinary hook. But if he once almost had a poem printed In a magazine, or if he's one of those coming play wrights that missed his train, we know he does these tilings because he's a genu ine Bohemian, and we have him up to dinner at the flat, and buy drinks for . him, point him out to our friends as one of those eccentric geniuses who refuses to be bored by the sordid conversations of society, when all the time he really needs a bath.' "Well, you can put down a small bet that you won't never ketch me askin' none of 'em up to my flat to dinner, or nothin' else, and the money's as good as won, said the House Detective. "Don't be too severe, Larry," said the Hotel Clerk. "The time may be near at hand when we'll be owing a National dpbt of gratitude to the Bohemians . of our country. "You've got to show me," said the House Detective. "I will." said the Hotel Clerk.' "I don't know whether you've heard about it or not. but there's going to be some international boat races over in England this year. In bygone years it has been the custom to get together an American crew of longshoremen and paper-hangers and sardine fishermen and they'd go over to England and they'd got in a rowing shell and spit on their hands and start in to rowing with the same abandon which they'd employ in eating pie with their knives, and there'd be nothing to it. "So this year the representatives of Perfidious Albumen, as the poet has so graphically put it. promulgated a rule that nobody could row in the Henley races that ever worked for a living or engaged in a vulgar trade or kept a shop. "So. I'm thinking. Larry, that we might get together a crew of true Bo hemians and enter 'em. They're eligible under the new rules if anybody is. and they ought to win from the Britishers easy enough if" When the German Emperor attends a muMcal comedy he oftn compose two or three original jokes, which are handfd from the royal box to the leading comedian for InterDolation. 4
