THE SOCIAL SIDE OF THE FOOD PROBLEM 129 



the feeding of children, at least so far as successful school 

 work depends upon proper feeding. 



160. National food resources. With the growth of popula- 

 tion every nation comes to a point at which it must look 

 ahead to insure supplies of food for the coming generation — 

 or suffer in time from famine or national decay. It is for this 

 reason that our national government devotes so much attention 

 to the question of food resources. Scientists are constantly 

 engaged in solving problems connected with (i) the produc- 

 tion of more food on a given area, (2) utilizing materials to 

 better and better advantage, (3) finding new sources for food, 

 and (4) preventing food from being wasted. 



Advances in chemical and biological knowledge have en- 

 abled us to find new methods for preserving food for long 

 periods. This makes possible a cheapening of food supplies in 

 two ways : (i) It is possible to send food a long distance, from 

 regions in which it is very abundant to cities and countries 

 where food is not so easily raised. (2) It enables us to keep the 

 bulk of large crops for a longer period. The condensation or 

 drying of milk, for example, makes the use of milk possible 

 in places where cows cannot be kept, and makes the surplus of 

 the summer's milk available in the winter. As a Frenchman 

 once said, " The box of dried milk is a cow in the cupboard." 



A good example of cheapening food by the application of 

 chemical knowledge has already been referred to (p. 123) in 

 connection with the extension of the use of cottonseed oil. A 

 later advance consists in treating this oil with hydrogen under 

 the influence of electricity, thereby producing, at less than half 

 the cost of butter, a fine solid fat which has the same food 

 value as butter, except that it has no flavor. This fat has the 

 advantage over butter that it does not easily turn rancid. 



Another direction in which government agencies work to 

 improve or increase our food resources is illustrated by the 

 production of new varieties of plants and animals having 

 special desirable characteristics — as cows with large milk-yield, 



