CURRENT TOPICS.

New Source of Sugar Supply. I t has been discovered by recent exper iments tha t the Jerusalem art ichoke is a source of a sweeter sugar than is yielded by either sugar beet or cane. I t is considered likely tha t farmers in Ireland will take up the growing of these arti- chokes af ter fur ther experiments have been carried out, as they will grow in a lmost any soil, while the leaves make good feed for horses. (A. E. B., Scientific American, March 1932. )

R.

Do We Eat Too Much?--The U. S. D e p a r t m e n t of Agriculture Clip Sheet No. 711 quotes DR. O. E: BAKER, economist of the de- par tment , as saying tha t it takes more than two acres of crops to produce food for an American, but it takes only one acre for a German, one-half an acre for a Chinese and only one-fourth an acre to feed a Japanese. Dr. Baker points out tha t these differences in the acreage of crops needed to feed one person are due principally to differences in diet. However , twice as much land is necessary to produce food for a Chinese as for a Japanese because crop yields are much higher in Japan .

T. K. C.

Statistics Elect r ica l . - -A repor t issued by the Geological Survey, U. S. D e p a r t m e n t of the Interior, s ta tes tha t the product ion of electricity by public-uti l i ty power plants in I931 showed a decrease of 4 per cent. f rom the ou tpu t of 193o. Nevertheless, the amoun t consumed came to no less than 91,679,232,ooo kilowatt-hours, 33.3 per cent. of this quan t i ty was produced by water power. I t also is interesting to find tha t within the last I2 years the increase in water power has not kep t pace with tha t of fuel. In I919, 37.5 of the total electricity consumed owed its origin to the so-called " white coal."

More interest ing still is the fact tha t the consumption of coal and coal equivalent of oil and gas was 3.2 pounds per ki lo-watt hour in 1919 and only 1.55 pounds in 1931. This conservation of fuel effected by the operators of public-uti l i ty plants in the past 12 years amounts to 325,000,000 tons of coal or its equivalent and represents a saving of over a billion dollars. The use of coal and oil for fuel in s team power plants in I931 as compared with 193o showed a decrease of IO and 13 per cent. respectively. The use of natural gas increased 15 per cent.

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