154 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



which could take the whole on but a small portion of its area not yet 

 under the plow. 



The only additional measure which would then be required 

 would be one which must come in any event — namely, the neutrali- 

 zation of the ports of export and import of food in the United States 

 and Great Britain and in such other countries as may choose to join, 

 together with the neutralization of a ferry or sea way for the trans- 

 portation of the food, wherein no hostile shot should be fired and no 

 seizure of private property permitted on the part of any nation, the 

 condition of this understanding being that if any other nation ven- 

 tured to question or contest this dedication of a neutral way for the 

 conveyance of food to the purposes of peace, the navies of Great 

 Britain and of the United States would be united to force its accept- 

 ance, and to sweep from the ocean the fleet of every state or nation 

 which ventured to contest this measure. That would be a suitable 

 measure for beginning to make a right use of navies — for the protec- 

 tion of commerce and for the destruction of every fleet or vessel 

 which did not accept the principle that private property not con- 

 traband of war should be exempt from seizure upon the high seas, 

 coupled with a declaration limiting contraband of war so that it may 

 never be made to include customary articles of commerce, especially 

 food, not now contraband. 



The foregoing text was set in type and one hundred advance 

 proof sheets were supplied, which have been sent by the writer to 

 the Secretaries of Agriculture and the chiefs of the Agricultural 

 Experiment Stations in all the States to which we look for any con- 

 siderable product of wheat. The replies are so complete and so 

 numerous as to make it impossible to incorporate a full digest of 

 the whole case within the limits of the present article. A sup- 

 plement will be prepared for a later number of this journal, in 

 which this information will be tabulated. For the present pur- 

 pose I may avail myself only of a part of the data which have been 

 sent to me. 



1. The evidence suffices to prove that there is not a State named 

 above which could not set apart five thousand square miles for the 

 cultivation of wheat in a rotation of four without trenching in the 

 slightest degree upon any other crop. 2. In previous essays, in which 

 I have dealt with the potential of the agriculture of this country, I 

 have very guardedly computed but one half our total area of three 

 million square miles (omitting Alaska) as being arable land, suitable 

 for the plow. The returns now in my hands would render it suitable 

 to increase that area to two thirds, or two million square miles sub- 

 ject to cultivation. 3. The area now under the plow for the pro- 



