NUMBERS AND DISTRIBUTION OF MANKIND—FAWCETT 
speculative advances in the develop- 
ments of science applied to food pro- 
duction, which may enable man to 
increase the food supply very largely. 
Also we should bear in mind that the 
number of people who can be main- 
tained at any given level of production 
varies inversely with their standards of 
living. It seems probable that the 
civilized peoples will prefer to check 
the increase in their numbers rather 
than accept a lower standard of living. 
On the first assumption, that the 
present methods of food production 
will be extended but not greatly modi- 
fied, we may calculate the world’s 
population capacity on the basis of 
France and the area formerly known 
as British India. These lands are 
chosen because (a) both of them 
ordinarily produce sufficient of their 
staple foods for their own needs, on 
their present standards, (b) both are 
old lands, and are fully peopled under 
present conditions, (c) fairly reliable 
statistics are available for both, and 
(d) they offer a contrast in type of 
climate and have different staple food 
plants. 
France is a fair instance of conditions 
in one of the long-civilized countries 
of Europe which is still, under normal 
conditions, self-supporting in respect 
of her necessary foodstuffs; and the 
standards of living of the French are 
probably a little above the average of 
those of the rest of Europe. In France 
no less than 90 percent of the land is 
classed as productive and half of it as 
cultivated.'® The density of the popu- 
lation is a little over 400 persons per 
square mile of cultivated land. At 
this rate the cultivable land of the 
world would be able to provide food 
for 6,500 million people (65> 108), 
more than three times the present 
population. 
In former British India the mean 
density of the population is more than 
600 per square mile of cultivated land, 
so that on the present standards of 
16 International Yearbook of Agricultural 
Statistics. 
817369—49——30 
391 
India the world might maintain nearly 
10,000 million (10°) inhabitants, five 
times the present population. 
But it should be remembered that in 
bad years neither France nor India is 
able to produce all the food needed 
by her people. After a bad harvest 
France must import wheat; and a 
failure of the monsoon rains may 
bring famine to large areas of India. 
If the whole world were peopled up to 
its full normal capacity on _ these 
standards of production and con- 
sumption of food, it would in fact be 
overpeopled, and the surplus popula- 
tion would be periodically removed 
by famine. 
On the estimate that 2% acres of 
cultivable land is, on the average, 
needed to support one person at the 
standards of the advanced countries,!” 
the 10,000 million acres of such land 
could support only 4,000 million peo- 
ple at this standard of living. 
Our second assumption is that the 
pressure due to an increasing popula- 
tion and a falling standard of living 
may compel mankind to utilize all 
the cultivable lands of the hot belt at 
least as fully as those of some small 
areas In it are now used. At this rate 
that portion of the cultivable land 
which lies in the hot belt, nearly a 
quarter of it, or 4 million square miles, 
might be capable of producing food '8 
for a population as dense as that of 
Java. That island contains 42 million 
people on 50,000 square miles of land, 
of which a little less than 60 percent 
is cultivable, so that the density per 
cultivable square mile is about 1,200. 
If we take France as our basis for the 
midlatitude lands and Java for the 
hot lands the possible population 
becomes 9,600 millions (96> 108), 
which is nearly the same total as our 
17 See, e. g., E. M. East, op. cit., and others. 
18 It is well to note that the possibilities of 
transporting perishable foods are likely to 
improve still more. Hence such an increased 
amount of food might be used to feed the 
people of the temperate lands as long as 
their economic and military power enabled 
them to take it. 
