48 City Homes on Country Lanes 



February, 1920, asking such searching questions as 

 the following: 



"Is the great industrial structure which America is 

 erecting in danger of toppling over because there is 

 not beneath it the foundation of an adequate and as- 

 sured food supply? 



"Must the cost of living mount higher and ever 

 higher because farm production is diminishing, while 

 the population of cities and industrial centers con- 

 stantly increases? 



"Is the time approaching when the United States 

 must depend upon overseas imports of staple food- 

 stuffs, and, therefore, be at the possible mercy of an 

 enemy in war? 



"Is it possible, in short, that this country may know 

 that fear of famine which always has Europe in its 

 grip, and which was one of the chief underlying causes 

 of the greatest of all wars?" 



Never before were such questions asked in respect 

 to America. A few years ago they would have con- 

 victed any journalist of mental incompetency. To-day 

 they are seriously entertained by those whose fingers 

 are on the pulse of American agriculture, and who 

 have begun to count that pulse, as a physician counts 

 the pulse of a very sick man. 



Mr. Cline was told that for the first time in history 

 "America sees the approach of a condition like that 

 which has kept Europe in agony for a century the 

 pressure of population on food supplies; that while 

 we are yet unconscious of it, and still less of its causes, 

 it has started gnawing at our vitals, and in the absence 

 of a remedy, will spread rapidly." 



