Few realize the quantity of water required to sustain a popula- 

 tion much less that water is the prime requisite of life, vege- 

 table and animal no less than human. Some six-sevenths of our 

 bodies and of the food we consume consist of water ; there is no 

 assimilation, none of that essential process of growth called meta- 

 bolism, no germination, no reproduction, no form of life what- 

 ever in the absence of water or otherwise than as the expression 

 of inherent properties of water. The average adult subsists on a 

 ration amounting in a year to the equivalent of 200 pounds of 

 bread and a like amount of meat; but in addition he consumes 

 some 2,000 pounds, or a ton, of water. Now to produce the 200 

 pounds of bread requires for the growth of the grain from 

 which it is made the use in the vital processes of the plants of 

 not less than 400 tons of water; and to produce the 200 pounds 

 of meat there are required for the drink and the making of the 

 food of the animals yielding it no less than 4,000 tons of water 

 so that the water ration of the average adult inhabitant exceeds 

 4,400 tons annually. Now the natural water supply of Missis- 

 sippi in the form of rain is nearly 6,000 tons per acre ; so that if 

 the acres are made productive she can sustain an inhabitant to 

 the acre, and leave a sufficient margin for a moderate urban pop- 

 ulation indeed for all the cities required as marts and commer- 

 cial centers. Yet any such development will involve improve- 

 ment of the soil, growth in rural population, enhancement in the 

 value of the farm indeed continuous progress in conformity 

 with the ideals of the founders of the Union in the form of a 

 landed citizenry. 



Perhaps the standard of thirty million population in this com- 

 monwealth may be too remote for practical consideration to-day ; 

 yet the conditions involved are not too unreal for careful weigh- 

 ing they merely emphasize the fundamental fact that Missis- 

 sippi must be a producing State and that her chief productions 

 must come from the soil. Her capital lies in her soil and her 

 natural waters. Long before her population reaches its limit she 



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