DEVELOPMENT OF DEXTROSE AND LEVULOSE INDUSTRIES

Speaking before the committee in favor of a defieiency appropriation for the development of the levulose industries, the Director of the Bureau of Standards gave glowing accounts of what could be done with the Jerusalem artichoke. In answer to a question of the chairman as to the difficulty of gathering the wild artichoke economically, it was stated that it would be cultivated, and he illustrated the improvement in the content of sugar, that is levulose, in the artichoke from what had been done in breeding beets. He called attention to the fact that the percentage of sugar in the wild beet had been, by careful breeding, more than doubled.

The chairman asked Dr. Burgess (page 279 of the hearings),

"Is any of this sugar which you have shown it is possible to produce used anywhere?"

DR. BURGESS: "Not yet. It has only been actually produced in sugar form in our laboratory. The trick was to get it out of water solution."

The director enlarged on the problems they were about to undertake (page 288 of the hearings.)

"The production of sugar is one of the world's largest industries. A new industry which threatens to modify this production is a thing of first importance to mankind. The Bureau of Standards is considering not merely the question of modification, but the possibility to a great extent of replacement of ordinary sugar (sucrose) by levalose.

It is no wonder, therefore, that the $50,000 asked for were given to the Bureau of Standards, which is a branch of the Department of Commerce, and not to the Department of Agriculture, which is immensely interested in the maintenance of both the cane and the sugar beet industries. The purpose of the Bureau of Standards is to abolish both of these industries.

There are many serious difficulties in the way of developing an economical levulose industry. It is stated by the Bureau of Standards that the present price of levulose is approximately $100 a pound. They proposed to make it as cheaply as they have been able to manufacture dextrose. The director promised the committee that the experimental work would be finished in.1927. This time has come and gone but no publication of levulose at 5 or 2 cents. a pound has yet been issued. The wisdom of the proverb, as it is read in Boston to the effect that it is undesirable to enumerate the number of progeny arising from the incubation of the ova of gallinaceous birds until the process is entirely completed, is a matter which the Bureau of Standards should take under careful consideration. It is quite evident that if this policy of the Standards Bureau be carried out any further the original intent of Congress will be entirely lost, sight of. Evidently there is nothing going on in this world which, following out the plan already adopted, may not come within the limits of investigation of this all embracing Bureau. Meanwhile, the work which it was intended to do must of necessity be neglected in order to gather in all these miscellaneous activities which plainly are foreign to the purpose of the original act. An unbiased study of these activities magnifies to colossal proportions the dangers which Professor Rowland pointed out.