Page:Fifty years hence, or, What may be in 1943 - a prophecy supposed to be based on scientific deductions by an improved graphical method (IA fiftyyearshenceo00grim).pdf/57

 have delighted those who heard them in New York, by taking part in a concert together; but those great artists are but memories, and have been supplanted by others, with voices improved by surgery and special nurture until their range, delicacy and power have been brought to a degree of perfection of which the nineteenth century never dreamed.

The chemists have not been far behind the electricians in their triumphs and successes.

The subject of special plant foods has been, during the past forty years, taken up by agricultural chemists with such results that not only can any special plant be given its special food, but special portions of it can be developed in disproportion to the rest; thus, oranges and lemons can be grown without seeds, and dwarf wheat practically without any straw. New varieties of food-plants have been developed from wild plants, while fertilizers are employed to dissolve the rocks that are in the soil and render them at once absorbable by the plant roots.

In metallurgy, surprising progress has been made. Several new noble metals have been discovered in the Ural Mountains and in Africa, giving scientists and jewellers a variety in color,