new horticultl'ral crops for our scant food 



supply; 



By Prof. U. P. Hedrick, Geneva, N. Y. 



Delivered before the Society, February 2, 1918. 



Economists prophesy a deficiency in the world's food supply^ 

 The cost of hving everywhere portends accuracy in their divination.- 

 The fast and furious struggle between nations and individuals for 

 land upon which to grow food augurs lean years to come. Census 

 enumerations of population presage sooner or later a dearth of 

 ammunition among the multiplying peoples of the earth to carry 

 on the battle of life. Of all this you need to be reminded rather 

 than informed. 



So many men have stated and attempted to solve the problem 

 of the future food supply that it would seem that the subject has 

 been wholly talked out from the facts at hand. Indeed, there has 

 been so much said and written about hard times at hand and famine 

 ahead that I doubt if you are pleased to have your premonitions 

 reawakened by further forebodings. 



Agricultural economists discuss three rather general means of 

 securing a food supply for those who live later when the earth teems 

 with human beings. These are: conservation of resources; greater 

 acreages under cultivation; and increased yields from improved 

 plants and through better tillage. It is difficult to anticipate the 

 problems that will confront us when people swarm on the land, as 

 now in India or China, but I venture the prediction that if in that 

 day " the evil arrows of famine" are sent upon us, a fourth means of 

 supplying food will be found quite as important as the three named. 



We shall find, long before famine overtakes us, that the natural 



' This address was originally a presidential address before the Society for Horticultural 

 Science and was printed in the report of the Society for 1913. It was given before the war 

 and its revision and repetition seems to the writer justified by the world-wide shortage of 

 food brought about by the war. 



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