THE WHEAT PROBLEM AGAIN. 



763 



I have expressed my distrust of great averages in respect to agri- 

 culture and farm products. 



In illustration of this fallacy, the figures presented by Mr. Hyde 

 will now be dealt with. It is held that in 1930, which is the year 

 when Sir William Crookes predicts starvation among the bread- 

 eating people of the world for lack of wheat (as if good bread could 

 only be made from wheat), the population of this country may be 

 computed at 130,000,000. The requirements of that year for our 

 own consumption Mr. Hyde estimates at 700,000,000 bushels of 

 wheat, 1,250,000,000 bushels of oats, 3,450,000,000 bushels of corn 

 (maize), and 100,000,000 tons of hay; and, although other products 

 are not named by him, we may assume a corresponding increase. 



Subsequently Mr. Hyde gives the present delusive average yields 

 per acre of the whole country, and then throws a doubt on the future 

 progress of agricultural science, saying, " Whatever agricultural sci- 

 ence may be able to do in the next thirty years, up to the present time 

 it has only succeeded in arresting that decline in the rate of produc- 

 tion with which we have been continually threatened." Without 

 dealing at present with this want of and true consideration of or 

 " speculation " upon the progress made in the last decade under the 

 lead of the experiment stations and other beginnings in remedying 

 the wasteful and squalid methods that have been so conspicuous in 

 pioneer farming, let us take Mr. Hyde's averages and see what demand 

 upon land the requirements of 1930 will make, even at the present 

 meager average product per acre. 



Mr. Hyde apparently computes this prospective product as one 

 that will be required for the domestic consumption of 130,000,000 

 people by ratio to our present product. He ignores the fact that our 

 present product suffices for 75,000,000, with an excess of live stock, 

 provisions, and dairy products exported nearly equal in value to all 

 the grain exported, and in excess of the exports of wheat. If we can 

 increase proportionally in one class of products, why not in another? 

 Whichever pays best will be produced and exported. 



All other farm crops carry the total to less than 400,000 square 

 miles now under the plow, probably not exceeding 360,000. 



