Stephen Poulson, age 15, of Danville, Ill., for his question:

WHAT IS CHEMURGY?

Chemurgy is a branch of chemistry that involves the use of farm and forest products and their residues in industrial manufacture and in the development of new types of plants for industrial use.

The word "chemurgy" was coined in the United States in the early 1930s when ways were being sought to use increasing farm surpluses.

Plants, because they consist mainly of cellulose, starch, sugar, oils and proteins, serve readily as raw materials for industrial and chemical products.

In 1938, Congress authorized the United States Department of Agriculture to establish laboratories at Philadelphia, New Orleans, La., Peoria, 111. and Albany, Calif., for the purpose of finding new uses for farm products grown in their respective sections of the country.

The development and promotion of new kinds of plants led to many new chemurgic uses. For example, safflower was planted on some 300,000 acres in the U.S. in the late 1960s. It opened paths for the production of safflower oil, the use of the material in the paint industry as a drying agent and safflower meal as a feed for livestock.