poses is the reward for conservation of a national re- 

 source so ample. Nowhere is the penalty of neglect so 

 threatening. 



By the fixed rate of increase in the past, we most 

 count upon a population of over 200^000,000 in the 

 United States in the year 1950. The annual increase 



i natural growth is about one and one-half per cent 

 each year. Adding for immigration only 750,000 a 

 year, which is less than three-quarters of the figures 

 reached in recent years, we shall have about 130,000,- 

 ooo people in 1925 and at least 200,000,000 by the 

 middle of the century. Where arc they to go f how arc 

 they to be employed, how fed, how enabled to earn a 

 living wage? The pressure of all the nations upon the 

 waste places of the earth grows more intense as the 

 last of them are occupied. We are approaching the 

 point where all our wheat product will be needed for 

 our own uses, and we shall cease to be an exporter of 

 grain. There is still some room in Canada, but it will 

 soon be filled. The relict will be but temporary. Our 

 own people, whose mineral resources will by that time 

 have greatly diminished, must find themselves thrown 

 back upon the soil for a living. If continued abuse of 

 the land should mark the next 50 years as it has the last, 

 what must be our outlook? 



Even the unintelligent are now coming to under- 

 stand that we cannot look to our foreign trade for re- 

 lief from future embarrassment. Our total exports, 

 about one-fourth in value of the products of our farms, 

 consist to the extent of more than 70% of articles 



9 



