2 Our Food Mollusks 



prejudice and desire, and attempt to see things only as 

 they are. 



Assuming this reasonable attitude as fully as possible, 

 it is well to consider on its merits the question of the 

 future sources of the world's daily bread. Since Malthus, 

 more than a century ago, showed that population tended 

 to outgrow subsistence, pessimists have declared universal 

 famine to be near, while optimists have refused to con- 

 sider the matter seriously, or believed that if the worst 

 should occur, some chemist would succeed in synthesiz- 

 ing proteids from inorganic matter, or that something 

 else would turn up to relieve the situation. While there 

 is certainly no immediate occasion for alarm over the 

 matter, the recent inauguration of an attempt to make a 

 national inventory of all of our resources is a triumph of 

 common sense. 



Heretofore the young continent has produced a vast 

 amount of human food that it has been necessary only to 

 gather, while other natural resources — metals, gas, oil, 

 coal, lumber, and fertile soils — have seemed to be limitless 

 in quantity. Viewing the present conditions as they are, 

 without unwarranted encouragement or discouragement, 

 it is very clear that preceding generations, giving no 

 thought to those who were to follow them, destroyed and 

 wasted, without substantial benefit even to themselves, 

 sources of natural wealth that, carefully conserved, might 

 have provided comfort for many generations. If there is 

 any excuse in the fact that our ancestors believed it to be 

 impossible to destroy our natural resources, there is none 

 for those of the present generation whose greed is delib- 

 erately and mercilessly cleaning up what remains, and 

 leaving a far-reaching inheritance of ruin. Our criminal 

 waste and our indifference to the fate, of future genera- 



