716 AGRICULTURE 



food-materials and to produce increased supplies from a limited area 

 when he has been compelled to do so. The Harlemer polders support 

 nearly two and a half persons to the acre, and in portions of China 

 and Japan five or six persons often get their living from this extent 

 of soil. These lands, however, are exceptionally fertile. But even on 

 an average acre of land, where the ordinary farmer would make only 

 five dollars' worth of produce, gardeners can easily make five hundred 

 dollars' worth. For these and many other reasons we cannot be very 

 much alarmed about mere food for the race. 



It is a narrow view of agriculture, however, which regards this 

 great art only as a means of providing men with the simplest means of 

 existence. We are interested in the progress of agriculture not only 

 as the means of supplying the food necessary for the increasing 

 peoples of the earth, but as the art which chiefly supports man's 

 advancement along all lines, intellectual, moral, and spiritual, as 

 well as physical. "Man shall not live by bread alone." It is a con- 

 dition of civilization that man is not satisfied with a mere subsist- 

 ence, but that his wants increase with his development. The modern 

 man is not satisfied with the simplest food or the plainest raiment, or 

 the barest shelter. He wants attractive and delightful food, because 

 such food promotes health, happiness, and the development of his 

 finer nature. Hence there have been developed the various special 

 branches of agriculture and horticulture and the many arts of milling, 

 manufacture, preparing, and preserving the products of the soil so as 

 to make food-substances tempting and delicious, as well as conven- 

 ient for use. The American people, for example, owe much of their 

 success as purveyors to the clever methods of preparing food-mate- 

 rials of all kinds, and to their skill and taste in presenting them to the 

 public. It is not enough that quantity alone should be considered, 

 for, in these days, quality plays an increasingly important part in 

 food-production. Hence the arts of producing choice meats, " hygienic 

 milk," cereals of greater food- value, etc., which arts may properly 

 be termed the " higher agriculture; " hence also the arts of pomology, 

 viticulture, etc., with the resultant practical arts of wine-making, 

 canning, and preserving, which may be properly considered as a 

 "higher horticulture." These arts, with the important domestic art 

 of cooking, have all been developed in response to man's demand 

 for more refined and delicious food, a demand which is certain to 

 grow more exacting with the progress of civilization. The same law 

 of progress characterizes our demand for raiment and for shelter. 

 With the development of the esthetic sense and the growth of truer 

 ideas of hygiene and comfort, the demand for more beautiful clothing 

 and more sanitary houses will grow steadily. 



But this is not all that can be said about the higher results of the 

 new agriculture. Progress in agriculture contributes largely to the 



