Saxon's Survival Hour #199: YOU CAN SURVIVE THE NUCLEAR WINTER

Today's excerpt begins on page 266 of The Survivor Volume 1.

OR HOW TO BUILD A FOOD FACTORY

by Kurt Saxon

Four years ago I sent to a Hollywood producer friend a collection of all my editorials in the five volume set of THE SURVIVOR.
His idea was that they could serve as a scenario for a motion picture about WW III and its survivors.

He worked very hard promoting it to studio heads but with no results.
The common response was that the subject was too frightening and would only depress the viewers.

Then came "The Day After", followed shortly by "Testament".
Were these not frightening and depressing?
There was even much fanfare before the showing of "The Day After" that it might traumatize children.
Many stations even announced warnings against letting children watch before they aired the picture.

All this made for great publicity and the ratings were high.
More people watched "The Day After" than would have watched otherwise.
Also, the viewers were far more attentive to the picture's message.

And the message was simple.
Every viewer was convinced that every character in the picture soon died.

"Testament" was shown without much fanfare.
But its message, although subdued, was just as hopeless and final; everybody will die in the event of a nuclear war.

In the meantime, long documentaries on "defense" systems were aired continuously.
As each system was described by the hopeful, wiser heads, according to the media, debunked them.
Nothing could stave off the inevitable, nor could any measures save the populace.

For the past year, "Star Wars" has been debated, for and against, often enough to insure its exposure to everyone.

The idea is that it is purely defensive and only to shoot down incoming missies.
Its detractors say, even so, at least ten percent of the enemy missies would get through and destroy the major population centers.

Wholly defensive as it may be, its threat lies in its supposed ability to shoot down incoming missies while the Pentagon lobs missies at the Kremlin with impunity.
Reagan stupidly offered to share the technology with Gorbachev.
Not only would the knowledge of how America's defense systems work enable the Russians to override our systems, but it would also free their superior conventional war machine to take over Europe.
America would then override the Russian defenses and nuclear war would rage full scale.

As if this often-aired scenario wasn't enough to kill all hope of individual survival, Carl Sagan and other scientists have gone public with their theories of a nuclear winter.
It seems that all that radioactive dust thrown up by thousands of ground-zeros will blot out the sun.
So for years there will be only darkness over the face of the Earth.

Then Gwynne Dyer's series on War was played at least two times on PBS so no one need miss it.
It was a dramatic work, indeed.
It reinforced the barrage of propaganda which, in effect, has made the American public accept the idea of nuclear doom.

So the media has been enthusiastically airing every kind of doomsday scenario that anyone can come up with.
But Survivalism, which holds out hope for those who would prepare, has been discredited as somehow evil.
Whomever would save himself and his loved ones has been branded antisocial at best and a camouflaged, armed predator at worst.

I don't think the media people got around a table and deliberately planned to convince the average person that he was doomed.
But it all fits a pattern of resignation and apathy.

Urbanites realize that in the event of a nuclear war they would be doomed.
Most of them are too establishment linked to move to rural areas.
Also, a sizeable portion of them moving out of the cities has already caused the erosion of many urban tax bases.

So the unspoken plan is to indoctrinate the public with the idea that their only salvation lies in disarmament.
This will eventually come about, they hope, and possibly genuinely believe.
The alternative, the Establishment preaches, is a devastating nuclear war, followed by an unsurvivable ice age.
In the meantime, the urban populace is to continue at their jobs, thus keeping the system going.

It should be obvious to all that nuclear war is indeed inevitable.
There is also the great possibility that several thousand nuclear warheads would cause a change in the planet's weather.
But there aren't enough nuclear warheads, and won't be, to make the sky black.

Most of the debris would hit the ground in from a few hours to a few weeks, depending on the weight of the particles.
A certain amount of fine dust would indeed go up into the stratosphere.
It could hang there for months or even years, before the sky was back to full clarity.

Of course, there would be some blockage of sunlight.
That might cause, at worst, a ten percent drop in the temperature worldwide.
This would mean winter would last a month longer and begin a month earlier.

A natural consequence would be that normal agriculture would be over for some time.
But on the plus side, there would be no large urban populations to feed and so there would be little market for agribusiness, anyway.

The radioactivity in the rural areas would die down in a few weeks as the urban slag heaps smouldered on.
Also, weather under the hazy skies may not even permit full season vegetable gardens for a couple of years.

Even so, there is no reason to believe that every nuclear warhead will be fired.
Nor will every urban area be hit.
Nor will fallout kill every person with the sense to stay inside for a couple of weeks after the war ends.

So what if twenty years after the war a lot of people may develop cancer?
Hiroshima and Nagasaki have proved that the threat of every survivor's contracting radiation poisoning and giving birth to mutants is a myth spread by those who would have us surrender to the Russians.

So, taking all things into consideration, if you don't live at ground-zero you will have a good chance to survive.
Of course, you will have to prepare.
But this doesn't mean you will have to spend the rest of your life in a hole in the ground or face an altogether sunless future.

Surviving a nuclear holocaust brings to mind Max Shulman's opening line in his book, "Sleep "Til Noon".
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Four shots ripped into my groin and I was off on the greatest adventure of my life".
And it will be an adventure.
But a rather horrible adventure which will select out of our species all the genetic corruption which should not have been nurtured in the first place.
Maybe what is to come is simply Nature's way of doing for us what our species was too immature to do for itself.

If you can't face up to the adventure, you have the option of stocking up on cyanide capsules, as a group of university students requested- of their faculty.
They were turned down.
But I have them for sale at two for $1.00.

But let's say you are the dynamic type who intends to make it through come hell or high water.
You want to be a part of the future and also want your line to survive and prosper.

Unless you live in a definite high risk area, a simple greenhouse will insure you and several neighbors all the fresh food you need.
This greenhouse need be only 20 by 20 feet square and will accommodate hydrophonic tanks, a ground level intensive gardening space, rabbits, chickens and earthworms.

You may think that 400 square feet would not produce much food and you'd be right if you are limited by conventional ideas of typical outdoor gardens.
But 67 square feet of hydroponic garden can supply all the vegetables needed by a family of five, all year 'round, as described in "Hydroponic Gardening".
And with my methods, the yield of such a small space can be more than doubled.

Hydroponics is simply a method of growing plants in plastic-lined wooden tanks, partially filled with peanut-sized gravel.
The nutrients are simple, easily available chemicals added to water poured into the tanks.

The organic garden area at ground level would be worked by the French intensive method as described in "Success With Small Food Gardens".
Your yield would be over twice as much as with a conventional garden.

Moreover, with my methods you can get up to twelve crops per year!
This is accomplished by planting the seeds in ordinary No. 15 tin cans with the bottoms cut out.
These are lined up on paper on the cinder blocks bordering the garden area.
When each plant has been growing for a month or six weeks and needs more room as it matures, its can is set in a hole in the garden or hydroponic tank to complete its growth.

In this way you can get twelve crops per year from most plants.
Especially since the controlled environment of a greenhouse knocks off an average of fifteen growing days.

On one side of the greenhouse, under the hydroponic tanks, would be 20 rabbit cages with simple trays under each to catch their droppings and urine.
Two bucks and eight does would supply at least 800 pounds of meat and 200 warm rabbit skins per year.

On the other side would be 20 cages of chickens, with three layers per four square foot cage.
At least three happy roosters would be put in with the hens periodically for fertile eggs to hatch.
Overall, the 57 hens should lay about 10,000 eggs per year, at four each per week, or about 833 dozen.
As you hatched the eggs to renew your flock you could get about 800 pounds of chicken meat per year.

Both chickens and rabbits could be fed from the greenhouse produce.

The droppings and urine from the rabbits and the chicken droppings would go into simple methane generators from which would come gas for light and heat.
After the gas stopped coming from a 55 gallon drum methane generator, the sludge would go to feed earthworms in plastic lined boxes under the cages on both sides of the greenhouse.

Earthworms double their populations every three months so there would be plenty of worms to supplement the chickens' feed and also to put in the organic garden area.
The worms' castings could also be sold for up to a dollar a pound for indoor plants.

Concerning energy from methane; gasoline generators to provide electricity can be adapted to work on methane.
In this way, you could have an inexhaustible supply of electricity for lighting the greenhouse through the darker days.

Such a home food factory (less commercial generator and frills) would cost under $1,000.
It would consist of a simple frame of bent metal tubing covered with inexpensive plastic.
Such plastic only lasts about two years.
The corrugated fiberglass sheets used on many commercial greenhouses costs considerably more but is permanent.

The greenhouse could be built onto that side of your house which permits the most sun.
Even if a new door had to be cut into the house, it would be well worth the cost.

Your home food factory would pay for itself in the first few months through savings at the supermarket and sale to neighbors.
Moreover, neighbor ladies would be glad to work in it for food alone.
You could get all the comparatively free labor you wanted.
Say you offered the neighbor ladies $5.00 per hour.
But instead of money, they would be paid in produce as priced in the supermarket.

Another plus to this system would come during the chaos of war and its aftermath.
Your neighbors would not only not loot you, but they would protect your family and greenhouse with their lives.

Aside from the diagrams of the greenhouse, I will explain the step-by-step operations of its various functions in following issues.
In the meantime, I advise you to buy all the books I've listed on food and food raising and processing so you can study the subjects in greater detail.

Incidentally, putting up such food factories would make a profitable business for someone with investment capital.
I would be glad to form a corporation for selling such prefabricated greenhouses nationwide.
Contact me if you are interested .

In the meantime, write for the most complete seed catalogue, free.
You can get it from Gurney's Seed & Nursery Co., Yankton, SD 57079

Kurt Saxon thought civilization would have collapsed by now.
He spent the majority of his life collecting knowledge of home based business.
His goal was for all his readers to survive at a more comfortable level than those that were less provident.

He knew the importance of communicating at a level folks could understand.
Most of what he has compiled for our benefit can be easily understood by everybody.

He also includes a subtle sense of humor.

You can find the majority of his life's work here.

Hear him read his stories.

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