544 BIOLOGY AND HUMAN LIFE 



There are many states in the Union that cannot possibly raise 

 the food of all their inhabitants. Food has to be imported from 

 other states that have a surplus of food. The same is coming 

 to be true of large industrial areas in Europe. We see the same 

 principle in the need for importing raw material, such as cotton 

 or wool, into regions that use up vast quantities of materials in 

 their industries. In the end, then, all civilized peoples come to 

 be dependent upon one another. We might even say that civi- 

 lization depends upon commerce, since only by this means can 

 each region make the most of its resources and talents and at 

 the same time get the benefit of what other regions can con- 

 tribute. The coal-mining regions, for example, can be made to 

 yield their coal only if their inhabitants can be supplied with 

 food and clothing from other regions. The cattle-raising regions 

 can be made to yield their products only if their inhabitants can 

 get supplies of fuel and manufactured goods from other regions. 

 So the whole world comes to be united. 



To make possible more effective planning of agricultural 

 production there was established, some years before the World 

 War, an International Institute of Agriculture. This serves as 

 a clearing house of information regarding crop conditions and 

 yields, new methods in management, new varieties, dangerous 

 pests, and other problems connected with getting the largest 

 amount of plant and animal material from the earth for human 

 use. We depend more and more upon international cooperation 

 to insure an adequate supply of basic needs for all people. 



391. Conservation. As pressure of population becomes greater 

 we look about for increasing our supplies in two directions: 

 (i) How can we produce more? (2) How can we get more out 

 of what we have ? The first problem, that of production, cannot 

 be sharply separated from the second, that of saving or con- 

 serving, for a large part of the waste is tied up with our methods 

 of production. A large part of each year's crop is lower than 

 it should be because fungi and insects and mice and rats are 

 allowed to destroy the plants, or parts of them, before the 

 harvest. Our production is handicapped because we allow so 



