“The Lunarians are exclusively vegetarians and live chiefly on grains and grasses and leguminous plants in some degree resembling those on earth, but of an entirely different habit, for they all or nearly all, mature in the period of one-half of a lunar month or about fourteen of your days. But this will not seem so surprising, when you reflect that we have continuous sunshine without night during the whole time. Of course this observation applies only to the exterior continent on the further half of the moon. Our plants were all developed on that side and became adapted to the seasons there, and they generally retain their habits of growth since their introduction to the interior continent, or Pocket. But in many cases, by changing the conditions of nourishment, new varieties have been developed, having a longer or shorter period of growth. Much more than half of our food products are produced under extremely artificial conditions. The artificial heat we require for cooking, for warmth etc., is produced by means of electricity and so is our artificial light; moreover, we do not allow any organic matter, such as dead bodies, dead trees or vegetables or any sort of refuse or excrete matters, to rot either in the open air or in the ground, and the manuring of the soil is strictly forbidden. Our air therefore is very poor in carbonic acid gas, (or carbonic dioxide), which constitutes almost the sole food required for the growth of plants. In fact about all that the air gets of this gas is that thrown off from our lungs in breathing. To use this up, we cultivate various air plants that grow with little or no roots and yet cover the ground with an agreeable carpet. Some of these are eatable. All organic matters, when they become refuse, are carefully collected in great air tight and powerful tanks, in which they are heated under an enormous pressure until their original organization entirely disappears. The dimensions of the tanks are reduced during this process by the gradual forcing in of the walls, which are made movable for that purpose, and when the contained material has become reduced to about the consistency and constitution of your ordinary lignite or soft coal, it is forced through a number of cylindrical holes on one side of the tank, by which it is moulded into round sticks of coal, and is then ready to be used over again. The whole process is an imitation of that by which mineral coal is produced in nature, both on the earth and the moon, except that it is accomplished artificially with us in about 50 hours, while nature takes thousands of years for it. The fluids and nitrogenous and other volatile substances pressed out, are secured and saved by proper absorbents. These together with the coal are used by our food growers in producing their plants.