520 ANNUAL, REPORT OP THE Off. Doc. 



come when at the present rate of production per acre our popula- 

 tion will overtake our wheat production. As has been shown, 

 wheat production by increa.sisig the acreage each year, has suc- 

 ceeded in holding its relative position as respects population during 

 the past 30 3'ears, the average production per capita varying only 

 slightly in any decade. The average production from 1871 to 1876 

 was 6.28 bushels per capita; from 1877 to 1886, 8.06 bushels; 1887 

 to 1896, 7.2.5 bushels; 1897 to 19U6, 7.66 bushels, being a per capita 

 average for the entire period of 7.31 bushels. During the same time 

 the surplus for export has only varied from a minimum average of 

 23.78 per cent, of the crop in the six years ended 1876, to a maximum 

 of 29.94 per cent, for the decade ended 1886 with an average for the 

 entire period from 1871 to 1906 of 28.05 per cent. 



RELATION OF WHEAT PRODUCTS TO GROWTH OF POPULATION. 



If the present wheat acreage were to stand still, and the bushels 

 per acre now grown remain constant, allowing 5.25 bushels to the 

 individual per year, and estimating our annual crop at 631,181,626 

 bushels, which is the average for the past ten years, a population 

 of 120,225,071 v.'ould consume our entire production annually. At 

 the present rate of increase this point of complete consumption 

 would be reached inside of 15 years. 



Mr. James J. Hill, in an address delivered at the dedication of 

 the Livestock Pavilion on the Minnesota State Fair Grounds, Sep- 

 tember 3, 1907, presented some figures respecting the increase of 

 our population in the next 40 years that are worthy of serious atten 

 tion. I quote from his address the portion relating to this point. 

 Mr. Hill says: 



"So careful an observer as Leroy Beaiilieu gives the natural increase of our 

 population as 15.2 per thousand per year. It is fair, therefore, to reckon the 

 increase by the excess of births over deaths at 15 per cent, on the average 

 for each decade. The additions by immigration are more variable. It is highly 

 probable, however, that the oncoming tide will increase. Only in periods of 

 severe depression has immigration fallen much below the half million mark 

 for the last twenty-five years. In good or fairly good times it has gone greatly 

 above. In the two years before 1905 it exceeded 800,000 annually, while for 

 each of the last tv/o years it has exceeded one million. It is a conservative esti- 

 mate, therefore, to add 750,000 a year for increase of population from this 

 source, or 7,500,000 for each decade. Computed on this basis, the population 

 of the United States in the near future will show these totals: Population in 

 1910, 95,248,895; population in 1920, 117,036,229; population in 1930, 142,091,- 

 663; population in 1940, 170,091,663; population in 1950. 204,041,223." 



If Mr. Hill's estimate is correct, or even approximately correct, 

 and our population increases bv the middle of this century to 204,- 

 000,000, we will need 1,071,000,000 bushels of wheat at 5.25 bushels 

 per capita to feed our people. To produce this at 13.5 bushels per 

 acre would require 79,259,185 acres, or 31,953,356 additional acres 

 over that in wheat in 1906, or 67.54 per cent, addition to our present 

 acreage. Can this increase be secured? 



DIVERSIFIED FARMING. 



It is very clear that the states whose agriculture is now devoted 

 almost exclusively to growing wheat must in the near future follow 

 divergifled farming, so that inatead of increaiing, they will have to 



