 Dupont presents the Cavalcade of America. This evening's broadcast in the Cavalcade of America has to do with the American farmer, and our quick announcement contains a number of little-known facts about the relationship between chemistry and farming. It is particularly appropriate that this broadcast should describe the growing partnership between the farmer and the chemist. For this week an organization named the Farm Comergic Council is meeting at Dearborn, Michigan to review that same subject. At this conference, businessmen work with leaders in science and agriculture to develop ways and means whereby industry may use an even greater share of the farmer's crops than it does now. And after hearing the information in our closing announcement, you'll agree that the farmer plays an important part in helping Dupont create better things for better living through chemistry. Dupont's Cavalcade Orchestra plays an overture based on two well-known American songs. My Little Gray Home in the West and In the Gloming, 1700 and Ninth, the first year of our country's constitutional existence. The Western family, Jonathan, Priscilla, and their boys have taken over a grant of land near Pitfield, Massachusetts. Jonathan is in the field. Priscilla, why don't you help me plant corn? But Jonathan, you haven't hear the field yet. We can't wait any longer. The season's too far away already. We'll have to plant it between the trees. No, no, Daniel. No, you wouldn't find beavers so far up the river. Look at the way the trees are ringed around. I never saw a beaver make a double ring before. That was done by a beaver called Jonathan Weston. You, Papa, why did you ring the trees, Jonathan? I should kill them. I hope so. We don't want any leaves. Corn likes the sun. Plenty of it. Come on now, let's all get busy. We've got a lot of work to do here. We'll fetch the earth loose with a hoe, then Daniel can make a hole in it with a stake, and Priscilla, you drop the corn in and cover it over. Well, I never. It'll be a funny-looking cornfield full of dead trees. Not for long. When the trees die, I'll burn them. And we can take up the stumps whenever we get time. Well, that'll take a long time. Papa. Papa, look. There's an Indian thing. Oh, my God. Priscilla, go into house. He's friendly, don't he? He's got a family. Just the same. Stay, be careful. But he does seem to mean well. How? How? What do you want? Me, hungry, want peace. He does look star-needless, Captain. I'll get him some red milk. Good. You need friends. Yes, yes, friends. Come on, we can't lose time. Put the corn in that pot, I get old. Just a little further over. Now step it down. No, no good. No good? What's wrong about it? Red man make corn grow long time. Knee show how. Look. So they don't cut? Corn here, bean here. Close. You got beans? Of course we have. I'll go get some, Papa. First, corn hill. Here, from corn hill, pumpkin. All go good. Well, thanks, friend. Here. Here's the bed and gruel. It'll make you feel better. Red man, thank white man for food. My friend, you're welcome to all we can give you. Your advice should increase our ladder a hundred fold. Hard work. The western family cleared their ladder. As Jonathan's son Daniel grew older, he helped his mother in the field while Priscilla visited herself making supplies for her large family. It is 1809. Madison is president. Young Daniel Weston is a man of 22, still planting corn and curling grass. Well, you're late getting into field, Daniel. I was leeching the ashes from mom and making soap and these lies. Oh, to be plenty? Well, get busy pulling some, all right. Tom, that land down by the hill looks to me like better soil. Let's plant there next year. All in good time, Daniel. We haven't cleared this field yet. Anyway, south hill's too stony. I just soon picked rocks as full stomps. Rocks will make good fences. You'll clear this land first before we move on. I haven't read the book called The New England Farmer. It turned out to be good. According to that... Well, you can't learn farming out of books. You can find out what other folks have done and what luck they've had. The book puts me in mind of south hill. Yes, well, you save your win for these stumps. When we get every last one of them out, time enough to think about Newland. Best to garden pot a horn over here by the street. Say, Pop, I got an idea. Now, look here, son, if you think you're going to start any Newland... We'll start on it before you think, Pop. I bought a hole in the base of that stump yesterday. And if we put in some powder, I'll bet that... Well, yes, that sound is promising, Denny. But how are you going to set her off without blowing us up, too? I've already planned a safe way out. I wet some of the powder and mixed it in a little clay to slow it down, soaked the pieces clean and dried it to make a fuse. Now, I'll put powder in the hole in the stump like this. There, there. Did it work? Can I kill it, too? Well, I'll lay the fuse in there now. There. Now, can you pin the bus, Pop? Go and play. Well, you be mighty careful, son. I will. Yeah, if this does the work, we'll be farming South Hill before you know it. All right, Pop. Uh, excuse me. Yes, hey, it's burning fast. We'll use a little more clean next time. She's got to the stump already. Don't stand to close, Denny. Wow! We give that old stump a bustin' all right. I say there's nothing to do with it now, except to pick it up for firewood. Well, the stump's out all right. There's a temptation to waste more powder. Oh, shut up. Let's shoot all the stumps. There are real enemies. The use of powder to clear land of stubborn tree stumps and rocks was a great boon to the farmer and his workers. Then, in 1811, farm history entered a new era with the founding of the Berkshire Society by Alcona Watson. The objects of the Berkshire Society were to advance agricultural science and to promote agricultural fairs where farmers could exchange ideas. Soon another great event carried farming westward in a bound. The impetus goes in 1825. Jonathan is gone, and Daniel, his son, is now master of the western farm, head of his own family. It is the close of a beautiful day in the golden time of Indian summer. In Daniel's great barn, the farmers, young and old, have gathered from miles around the western annual husking day. Do you see? Daniel, I think the girls ought to help husking now and help me set out the stuff. Please move. Well, over there. Husking with that young fella from Virginia. He's all the way from the shell of the valley. I don't know if I'd like her taken up with her boys in the southwest like that. They're so restless. Oh, he seems a good sort of family to me. Quiet over there. He's got the red deer. Ah, but she did, though. That's just what you did to me when you were aging twice as pretty as she is. Yeah, Mrs. Weston, Mom. You make it. Oh, go on with your Daniel. I've got words to do. You get the cider now. Oh, no. What's the matter? Well, here comes Ruthie on the run. Oh, I knew that fella from Shenandoah was too forward. Papa, Mom, what do you think? I hang. I mean Mr. Livingston. He just got the red deer. He kissed me. We saw it. But you didn't hear what he said. He asked me to marry him. Marry him? Well, I never. And what did you say? I said no, of course. But I mean to just the same, if you don't mind. Well, if your mind said on it, if no, you follow mine. You're a Weston, Ruth. And I'll give you my best land over by the south hill. Oh, well, that's sweet of you, Papa. But, well, if they want to go west, all the way to the Shenandoah, much further, way out under the Old North West Territory. Far as Ohio? Maybe further. You ought to hear Hank tell about it. I'd just like to once. Well, you can. Here he comes. Weston's Miss Weston, ma'am. Young man, what's this nonsense, Ruth tells me about your wanting to take her west? Well, I do, ma'am. I ask her to marry me. Well, we don't like the notion of seeing our daughter go out into the west. If you too are set on wedding, why, you can have my south hill land and settle here. Well, that's my account of you, Mr. Weston. I just got to go west. You see, as a fellow grew up with me down the Shenandoah, I promised him before I left that I'd go with him out to Ohio just soon as he and his father finished some work they're doing together. They're working on some crazy machinery to do farm work by hand instead of by hand. Huh? What nonsense. Yeah, that's what I tell Si. But he won't listen. Oh, I know he's a great friend. You like him, Ruth? What's his name? Cyrus McCormick. Well, McCormick or no McCormick, the west isn't civilized and goodness knows when it will be. Oh, my God! They're working on a new invention. In the harvest time, in the year 1831, Hank drives Ruth over to the McCormick farm. How does he know he can do himself a thing? Well, uh... Today's going to decide whether we go west or stay right here. Well, what's so important about the day? You see, that's yourself in a minute. Hey, look, there's Si now over in the wheat field. Oh, man! What's the thing he's sitting on? Whoop, whoo, whoo, there, there. Whoop. Well, that's the farm engine, Si. Yeah, that's why we've been hanging around home the last few years. Oh, that's... Oh, that's a crazy fool thing. What are you supposed to do? Harvest wheat. You know, make horses drag that contraption around instead of using the fire? Yeah, that's what he says. No harvesting has been done with sickles and sires as long as man can recall. Si's only changed that, huh? You know, he's just wasting a lot of fool time. But he promised me that if this thing didn't work, he could get it and move on out west and explain it. Oh, I don't know if I'm sad just to move now. It needs such a nice home here. Oh, say, there's lots of fine land waiting for us out west. Hey, hello, Si. Hello. Ah, you're a problem-crazy, Si. You better get off that thing before you get caught and then get hooked to death. Get a mirror. All right. Whoop, whoop, there. Hey, let me help you, hon. There. There you are. He's come back. What a machine. Look, it's just leaping all right. Let me swab wider than any man can leap to the side. Well, Si, I guess I don't much like it, because now I reckon you will be going west at all. Of course I will. You've got to go west now, Hank. I'll take all those prairies out there to give this reaping machine of mine a man-sized job. That had been for the westerns of Massachusetts. But while the western prairies yield to the new farm machinery, back in the east, another pioneering movement is underway. The first agricultural experimental station in America. This was so successful, it later developed into the Sheffield Scientific School, a part of Yale University. In the year before the election of President Layton, a letter arrived at the western farm, which is now run by another generation of westerns, John and his son, Joseph. He's letter-free, if I'm not mistaken. It's all the way from Illinois. Well, well. I wonder how she is. I'll read it out. Well, she says they're all well. President Williams going to the New Michigan State Agricultural College. Gee, Bob. Can I go, too? Yeah, up to Michigan. Must be crazy. Oh, I don't have to go that far. I just really... Can't find farming out of books. Well, pretend that they did. I've heard you say he brought the farm back to this old-time yield after he'd been to the experimental station in New Haven. Yes, but your uncle was fine farming for that. I know what he was reading about. Well, you've got to keep up with the times, Pop. Oh, let me go. Well, all right, I have to harvest. You can go. Oh, gee, Pop, that's great. I'll learn how to raise new crops and make every square rot a land we've got worth a lot of money. You'll just learn what we can raise in the top patches if stones are to be satisfied. The location of America presented by DuPont moves on. In 1862, President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, opening the western government lands to pioneers. And, admittedly, there was a mighty surge westward. Descendants of Jonathan Weston moved out across the Fertile Plains to the new land rack. But, meanwhile, time has dealt harshly with the old western farm near Pickfield. It has fallen into neglect. Its tired acres lie rock-strewn and untilled. All its young men are from westward in the new and more fertile field. Only one old lady remains behind, waiting. Some lamiol, Grandma. Come to get you. You've got father's lips. So your lamiol? The land's sakes, I don't know, just for westmen, anyway. The westmen are all right. Good men, too. Good farmers. Are you ready to leave now? Yes, I'm as ready as I'll ever be, Kelly. These your boxes? Carry them up to the wagon place. Ain't very heavy. Haven't got much left, you know. Dad and mother will be glad to see you out in Illinois. They often talk about you. Do they? Do you have a voice like your father? We have a fine place out there. You like it. I hope so. But then I like it here, too. Are you sure you haven't forgotten anything? No. I remember everything very well. Seems like only yesterday. I came here as a grower. Oh, I mean, are things all here? Nothing left behind? Why everything's left behind? I said bucket doing there. Young man, you'll be kind enough to fill that bucket and leech the ashes from it. Leech the ashes? What's that? Huh? Oh, of course you wouldn't know. We throw water over the winter's ashes. Make lye. Then we use it for making fruit. You can make your own soap here for over a century. I'll throw the water on if you want me to. No. There's no sense there. No. Not for dust. Old habits are hard to break. You know, I should think you'd be glad enough to break with this old place. Looks mighty rundown. Because you young men ran off and left it. Left the home. This soil has made you one of the finest families in this old country. I'm glad to be the last owner of it. Old and broken down teeth. I'm old myself. And I love every single one of it. All right. I'm sorry, Grandma Wesson. Nothing to be sorry about. Well, come on, young man. Open the door. Drive me away before I change my mind. Purple planes of the west. Grandma Wesson gets her first breathless glimpse of American farming on a large scale. The very next day after her arrival, Lemuel drives up in a buggy as Grandma waits for him on the porch. Help me in. Oh, say, Lemuel, let's get away for the whole family troops along with us. I never see so much fuss and attention for one old lady in all my life. Of course, Grandma, it bothers you. Bothers me? I love it. But today I want to learn something about farming. Your mother's always trying to get me rest. I never rested in my life. And I'm not going to begin now. All right, Grandma. I want that high step now. Careful. Yeah, I will. I'll get a boot. There you are. All right? Comfortable? Yeah, all right. Come on, get in yourself. All right. There we are. Come on, get up. Get up. There's a neighbor, Lemuel. Oh, just on the other side of that wheat field. I can't see any house out there. Oh, I get not. That wheat field is over 10 miles wide. 10 miles wide? A land six must take an army of men to plow in reapers. Oh, we have about 30 horses. We drive them in teams of eight or seven or more. And of course, we use gang clouds and the new reapers. Oh, you'll see them off yourself. Come on. Good morning. I didn't see your father at breakfast this morning. No, he went over to the Grange to settle some business with the railroads. The Grange? Yeah, that's the farmer's side of it. Well, sort of looks after their problems. All right, goodness. Sounds like your father was in business. Nowadays, the farm owner's got to be a businessman, as well as a laborer, an artisan, and a manager. Times have changed, Grandma. Now come beneath the heavens, Lemuel. There's two things a western's got to be. First, last, and always. What's that, Grandma? A good neighbor. And a good farmer. Has brought the farm family out of isolation into the great circle of world events. Farm machinery has become prodigious in sales. Agricultural colleges and chemical laboratories show the way in chemistry and help the farmer to maintain his rightful place as one of the leaders in the Cavalcade of America, freezing things to eat. But chemistry has made the modern farm much more than that. Today, dozens of things grown on the farm take adventurous journeys through factories and end up as products so different that you'd never recognize them. Let's consider for a moment how much chemistry means to the farmer. Take soybeans, for example. For nearly a hundred years in this country, they were raised in limited quantities, mainly for feeding hogs. Then they began to become important as raw material for manufacturing. Last year, five and one-half million acres were planted in soybeans alone, simply because industrial uses have been developed for them. Soybean oil is used in paints, varnish, soaps, printing inks, linoleum, and various other products. And chemists have found more than 300 possible uses for soybean meal. The American farmer does a thriving business in vegetable oil. The DuPont Company alone uses annually 23 million pounds of such oils from soybeans, flaxseed, and tongue nuts. There's another story in corn. Chemists have developed more than 100 commercial uses for corn, ranging from glycerin, used in making dynamite, to carbon dioxide for dry ice. Every year, DuPont buys 36 million bushels of corn, representing the yield of 1,400,000 acres. Millions of pounds of cotton are converted annually by DuPont in order to even hopefully resemble a piece of cloth. Transparent plastics for safety glass, for instance. Colorful finishes, photographic film, and others. I could go on and on naming many other examples, such as the veritable ocean of molasses from sugarcane, used to make industrial alcohol, and the turpentine used for synthetic camphor and for paint. They all go to show how chemistry and engineering have opened up a future of unlimited possibilities for the American farmer. In addition to being good customers of the farmer, DuPont chemists contribute many aids to the business of farming, such as explosives for clearing land and draining swamps, seed disinfectants, insecticides, fungicides, fertilizer ingredients, paint, and other essential materials of daily use. Thus, chemistry helps the farmer to grow his crops and takes part of the crops to give him bigger income. In this interesting partnership between farming and chemistry, you see a striking illustration of the DuPont phrase, better thing for better living through chemistry. Stories of logging camps and oil fields will be broadcast next week at the same time when DuPont again presents the Cavalcade of America. This is the Columbia Broadcasting System.