UNITED STATES' WHEAT-GROWING CAPACITY. 151 



leguminous plants dissociate the nitrogen of the atmosphere, where 

 the supply is unlimited, converting it to the nutrition of the plant, 

 and thence to the renovation of the soil. Sir William deals only 

 with the renovating qualities of clover, having apparently no com- 

 prehension of the existence of the cow-pea vine, the soya bean, the 

 alfalfa, and many other types of legumes by which the partially ex- 

 hausted soil, especially of the South, is now being renovated with 

 great rapidity at a low cost. Sir William's hopes of nitrogen seem to 

 be based on some method being found to save the sewage of cities, 

 but mainly on the conversion of the water power of Niagara and 

 other great falls to the generation of electricity and thence to the dis- 

 sociation of the nitrogen of the atmosphere. 



The point to which I wish to direct attention and inquiry is this 

 alleged nearly complete taking up of the land of the United States 

 capable of producing wheat in paying quantities. The question 

 which Sir William Crookes puts is this : He says there is a deficit in 

 the wheat area of thirty-one thousand square miles which must be 

 converted to wheat-growing in order to keep up with the increas- 

 ing demand of the world to prevent wheat starvation in less than 

 one generation. It will be observed that the present necessities 

 of the world are computed by Sir William Crookes at 2,324,- 

 000,000 bushels, of which this country will supply 600,000,000 to 

 700,000,000 bushels from an area of land devoted to wheat of 

 71,000 square miles, a fraction over two per cent of the area of the 

 United States, omitting Alaska. 



The problem may then be stated in these terms : Given a demand 

 of the wheat-consuming population of the world for this whole 

 supply of 2,324,000,000 bushels, this country could supply it at the 

 present average per acre by devoting two hundred and fifty thousand 

 square miles to this crop, or less than ten per cent of the area, omit- 

 ting Alaska. We could supply the world's present demand, but of 

 course such computations are purely speculative. 



I venture to say that if a contract could be entered into by the 

 bread-eaters of the world with the farmers of the United States, 

 giving them an assurance of a price equal to one dollar a bushel in 

 London, or a fraction under thirty-three shillings per quarter of eight 

 bushels of sixty pounds each, which would yield to the American 

 farmer from sixty to eighty cents per bushel on the farm, the land 

 now under cultivation in wheat and not required for any other crop 

 or for pasture would be opened in the United States which would 

 be devoted to this service year by year as fast as the consumption 

 called for it. In fact, there are now fully one hundred thousand 

 square miles of land, 64,000,000 acres, fully suitable to the produc- 

 tion of wheat at fifteen bushels to the acre, practically unoccupied in 



