"Men of an inquisitive nature must have asked themselves the question for thousands of years, 'Why grow grass, let the cow eat the grass, digest it, and finally turn it into milk? Why not eliminate the cow entirely?' The thought, while elementary, had no actual basis or foundation for centuries, because the chemical processes of the intermediate stages between the grass and the final milk were too complicated and were not at all well understood. Only during the last few years has the problem been solved satisfactorily. "Now we grow the fresh grass, which we put into these large retorts, where the grass is digested just the same as if it were in the stomach of the cow. By the addition of salts and chemicals we imitate this digestive process, and by eliminating solids and the liquids, we finally get a milk that is not only better than the original cow or goat milk, but has many qualities not possessed by cow's milk. "Try this glass of artificial milk," he said to Alice, handing her a glass of rather unappetizing-looking liquid of a slightly pale green color, not too clean looking and somewhat thick. Alice tasted it, however, and found that it tasted exactly like a good rich cow's milk. The manager asked Alice to close her eyes and take a good drink. She did so, and exclaimed in surprise that it tasted exactly like rich, creamy milk. The manager then explained that synthetic milk was free from the bacteria which give milk its white color. Moreover, the fat content was much higher than cow's milk, and, there being a greater percentage of sugar present, the milk tasted sweeter. Certain added salts gave it a distinguishing taste. From this milk, he further explained, any sort of fat could be extracted, and the usual array of milk products, such as butter, all sorts of cheeses, etc., could be made much better than from cow's milk, which never ran uniform. After inspecting the laboratory, Alice and Ralph sampled a number of products, all of which tasted excellent--better, if anything, than the natural products. The manager added "You will find our synthetic products are far easier to digest, and are more wholesome than the natural product. The reason is that we have eliminated all of the disease-carrying microbes and bacteria, retaining only the beneficial ones, which we can control very easily in our plants, more than the cow or goat can do." 7 THE END OF MONEY A few days later, Alice, while rolling along one of the elevated streets of the city with Ralph, inquired how the present monetary system had been evolved: "You know," she confided, "I know very little of economics."