354 



THE AOrJCJLTCJRAL NEWS. 



XUVKMDEK 13, 1900. 



the proflnction of crops, but for the proper preparation 

 of the saleable part of the latter for the market. In the 

 province of the anthropologist, there is the study of 

 different races of mankind in relation to their needs 

 and the resources of different parts of the globe. The 

 physiologist can throw light on the life- processes in 

 both plants and animals which have important bear- 

 ings on agriculture, and the botanist has such an 

 intimate connexion with that subject that no explana- 

 tion of his relation to it is required. Finally, those 

 who have a special interest in educational methods are 

 being called upon more and more to benefit agriculture 

 by their knowledge, so that the best methods of 

 instruction shall be available for those who practise it, 

 in order that they may become capable of appreciat- 

 ing and afiplying in the right manner the informa- 

 tion which is placed at their disposal by the 

 agricultural investigator. 



In considering, in the broadest way, what are the 

 chief circumstances that govern the changes in the 

 industry of agriculture throughout the world, the 

 greatest attention must be undoubtedly given to 

 population. The growth and rapidly varying distribu- 

 tion of this, and its changing and diversified needs, both 

 have a close bearing upon the kind and extent of new 

 agricultural introductions, as well as on the continued 

 local existence and extension of the kinds of production 

 that have been already undertaken. Crops are raised 

 for man, in the first instance, either directly or 

 indirectly, and whether what they produce is required 

 for food, clothing, shelter, the provision of requirements 

 in connexion with quick transport, articles of luxury or 

 drugs for the practice of the healing art, it is the 

 distribution of man and the circumstances of his needs 

 that vvill determine how they shall be provided, and 

 when and where that provision shall lake jjlace. 



Until a comparatively recent period, man has lived 

 in small communities, each of which obtained what it 

 required from the soil on and near which it existed. 

 Up to a hundred years ago, even, tke nations drew 

 their supplies largely from their own territories, and 

 there are still large areas where production is limited 

 by local needs, 'i'his will all change, however, and is 

 changing rapidly, the chief factors in the causa- 

 tion being increase of population, the provision of 

 rapid and cheap means of transport, and the more varied 

 desires and wants which have arisen from the- latter 

 circumstance. The very methods which have been 

 devised for the purpose of bringing necessary articles to 

 the consumer's door have themselves served to intro- 

 duce others, which, at first luxuries, have now become 

 indispensable to him. The stream of agricultural 



products from almost every part of the world has, 

 during the last half century, been chiefly directed 

 towards Europe: but even the Asiatic or African agricul- 

 turist will not continue indefinitely to find the first 

 necessaries of life close at hand, so that new possibilities, 

 even as to the provision of these, will undoubtedly arise. 



The original impulse was for man to move into 

 new regions in order to find the food that those 

 which he was inhabiting could no longer give him. 

 Later, when the great industrial centres arose, lart^e 

 communities were formed, which had to draw the 

 materials of their food, and often for their handicraft, 

 from distant parts of the world. The former would 

 appear to be the healthier condition and, indeed, it 

 seems that a tendency is arising to return to it, to a 

 certain extent, at any rate. The economic state of 

 a country like Canada, for instance, will surely be better 

 if it is enabled to achieve, over its wide area, a steady 

 settlement by a population which will e.xist bv means 

 of a diversified farming, rather than if that population 

 simply continues to produce grain for export. Id would 

 not be true to say, however, that no effort has been 

 made to provide the food required for an increased 

 population from long-settled countries. Thus the wheat 

 acreage of Hungary has increased from over seven 

 million to more than nine million acres in twenty 

 years, to 190G: France has in recent years, raised the 

 average of her production, so that she now turns out 

 more of that cereal from a smaller surface; while 

 a similar state of affairs exists in German}-, with 

 a fairly constant wheat area. 



The consideration of the ultimate effects, in relation 

 to the supply of food, of the large increase of the popu- 

 lation of the world that is taking place, has led, since 

 the question was raised by Sir William Crookes in 

 1898, to a fear on the part of some that the available 

 foodstuffs would eventually become insufficient for the 

 needs of man. It was prophesied then, by the same 

 authority, that means of rendering the nitrogen of the 

 air available for plants on a commercial scale would soon 

 be found, and this has, of course, been done. It is not 

 to this alone, however,.that recourse is being had for the 

 purpose of averting such a catastrophe. Far greater in 

 importance are the methods that are being discovered 

 and employed, by the investigator and by the practical 

 • agriculturist, in the direction of the conservation and 

 impro'.ement of the fertility of the soil, and in the pro- 

 duction of more prolific, more disease-resistant varieties 

 of plants, as well as of varieties which will be specially 

 adapted to the climatic conditions under which they 

 are required to grow. 



