508 SYMPOSIUM ON FOOD PROBLEMS 



bushels of wheat. An acreage sufficient to produce even more than 

 this crop, if we have a normal average production, has been and is 

 being planted." This I assert is a positive menace. While I am not 

 conversant with the plans of the German high command, I do not 

 for a moment believe they have gone into this war leaving any vital 

 point so exposed as to be dependent upon " a normal average produc- 

 tion," if there is any way of avoiding it. We have abundant ways 

 of giving further guarantees of bread substitutes, and we have not 

 done so. 



In engineering there is a practice of giving a wide margin of 

 safety in building. A structure is made five or ten times as strong 

 as the normal average load it is to carry. The peril that lies in this 

 dependence upon a normal average production of wheat is shown 

 by an examination of the irregularities of production in our regions 

 of surplus. More than any other important crop regions in the 

 United States our regions of wheat surplus are bounded by the 

 perilous bounds of drought or frost. The w'estern limit of the wheat 

 border in Kansas is a drought line. The same is true in Nebraska, 

 in South Dakota, in North Dakota. The same thing is true along 

 the whole wide sweep of the southern edge of the West Canada 

 wheat country, while its northern edge is limited by the uncertain- 

 ties of cold waves and of frost. These unpredictable perils explain 

 how Canada has been able to produce in 1914, 161 million bushels, 

 in 191 5, 376 million bushels, and in 1916, 220 million bushels — a 

 fluctuation of more than 100 per cent. We have shown ourselves 

 capable of fluctuations within twelve months from 1,025 million 

 bushels in 1915, to 639 million bushels in 1916, and we were unable 

 to raise the amount substantially in 1917 (651 million bushels). Ex- 

 cept as a last refuge of the hard pressed we have no right to depend 

 upon " normal average production " when Minnesota has shown her- 

 self able to vary her annual yield per acre from 17.0 to 7.4 bushels ; 

 North Dakota from 18.2 to 5.5; South Dakota from 17. i to 6.8, all 

 within the short gap of the same twelve months. 



In the same limit of time Kansas has jumped within recent years 

 from 10.7 to 20.5 bushels per acre. In one season Nebraska has 

 plowed up 75 per cent, of her winter wheat because it was not worth 

 keeping. 



