AVAILABLE FOOD SUPPLIES 181 



in dietaries undoubtedly will have to be made. Let us notice. In 1910 

 for every man, woman and child in the United States there was produced 

 seven bushels of wheat, thirty-two bushels of corn, four bushels of 

 potatoes, and forty pounds of sugar. There were six tenths cattle for 

 each person, six tenths sheep, and seven tenths swine. Add to this the 

 fruits, vegetables, poultry and dairy products, oats, and other small 

 grains and we see that there is plenty of food to go around and to spare. 



There was grown in the United States in 1912 corn, which if as- 

 sembled in one immense field might have covered Germany or France 

 entirely with its rustling phalanx. How many millions might be nour- 

 ished by the produce of this tremendous acreage ! Here is a great source 

 of human food at present utilized in a very slight degree. 



Man takes food first of all that pleases the palate. We can no longer 

 make our choices on the basis of palatability alone, and a study of the 

 principles of nutrition must be pursued to help us out of those difficulties 

 which arise from a restricted supply of food. Food has two primary 

 functions in the body ; first, to supply material out of which the body is 

 built; and, second, to furnish energy to warm the body and to drive its 

 machinery. Perhaps the second function is the more important. Plants 

 alone have the power to collect solar energy and store it up in a latent or 

 dormant form in their seeds and other parts. Animals may, by eating 

 and digesting these plant materials, liberate and utilize this stored-up 

 energy. When corn is fed to a steer under favorable conditions three per 

 cent, of the energy of the corn may be recovered as meat in the edible 

 portion of the carcass. The remaining ninety seven per cent, was used 

 by the animal in its various activities and lost as far as the nutrition of 

 man is concerned. In pork the recovered portion amounts to sixteen 

 per cent. ; and with the dairy cow eighteen per cent, of the energy of the 

 food is found in the milk produced. Obviously this is a wasteful process, 

 this conversion of grain into meat and milk. It has its justification only 

 in the greater palatability and digestibility of the final products. Doctor 

 Armsby, of the Pennsylvania Experiment Station, draws the conclusion : 

 "all the edible products which the farmer's acres can yield will be 

 needed for human consumption and the function of the stock-feeder in 

 a permanent system of agriculture will be to utilize those inedible prod- 

 ucts in which so large a share of the solar energy is held and to render at 

 least. a portion of the latter available for human use." 



But shall we solve our food problem as it has been handled in some 

 densely populated countries such as India and China? With an area 

 nearly twice that of either of these countries, the capacity of the United 

 States to maintain a population on the same standard as obtains in 

 China, for instance, would be perhaps relatively as great. It would mean 

 a great change in our standard of living, one to which we should not take 

 kindly, and one which we hope need never be adopted in this country. 



