510 SYMPOSIUM ON FOOD PROBLEMS 



price just as we have for wheat, for exactly the same reason, so that 

 we might shift the energies of our farmers from producing steer food 

 to producing man food. It would take a very small shift, for our 

 corn acreage in 1916 was 106 million acres, our wheat 53 million 

 acres, and our potato area was 3.5 million acres — an insignificant 

 proportion, perhaps 3 or 4 per cent, of our possible potato land, but 

 enough under ordinary conditions to glut the market about every 

 other year. Next spring it should be oversupplied again, and the 

 government should guarantee it in advance and be prepared to con- 

 serve the potatoes by drying them. 



The labor supply is a very important part of food production, 

 Washington reports that ioo,(X)0 men per month are now going into 

 war industries. The draft is taking them faster than that. Muni- 

 tions and luxuries can both pay more than the farmer can. This is 

 perilous 'business. With increased food demands and a government 

 that is tinkering with the law of supply and demand, food shortage 

 may catch us before we know it. The government should make 

 some application of prophecy to the nation's needs and tendencies, 

 and fill the most important needs before it is too late. Food disas- 

 ter is a real disaster. 



The government that rules us in the near future, will be a gov- 

 ernment well informed, and having the courage of its convictions. 

 The last point will have much to do with deciding what language it 

 speaks. Let us hope that the U. S. government of 1917, with its 

 frittering of human energ>% is gone. Last spring when Congress 

 was discussing selective draft, college faculties urged students to 

 leave their classes and go to the farm. Through my owri personal 

 ofifice I cleared 418 University of Pennsylvania students for the 

 farm, within five weeks after the declaration of war. This winter 

 I have had the humiliation of seeing the food consumed by the mak- 

 ers of chewing gum, high-heeled shoes, limousines, and other prod- 

 ucts which thus are made to rank as of more importance than educa- 

 tion. 



The government is now formally asking, through the Depart- 

 ment of Labor, for boys to leave school and go to farm work. It is 

 an excellent principle, the selective draft idea applied to human time. 

 Drop your books and take up the hoe. But w'hat about the high- 



