24 NATIONAL RESOURCES. 



It would seem, then, that our arable lands, taking the 

 lowest estimate, are in excess of those of China, by some 

 hundreds of thousands of square miles. The fact, there- 

 fore, that Chinese agriculture feeds hundreds of millions 

 ought, certainly, to be suggestive to Americans. 



The area of the United States, excluding Alaska, is 

 equal to that of Great Britain and Ireland, Norway, 

 Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Holland, Belgium, 

 France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, and 

 European Turkey, together with that of Palestine, 

 Japan and China proper (see map). These countries 

 have a population of nearly or quite 650,000,000, and 

 •their aggregate resources are probably not equal to those 

 of the United States. The crops of 1879, after feeding 

 our 50,000,000 inhabitants in 1880, furnished more than 

 283,000,000 bushels of grain for export. The corn, wheat, 

 oats, barley, rye, buckwheat and potatoes — that is, the 

 food crops, were that year produced on 105,097,750 acres, 

 or 164,215 square miles.' But that is less than one-ninth 

 of the smallest estimate of our arable lands. If, there- 

 fore, it were all brought under the plow, it would feed 

 450,000,000 and afford 2,554,000,000 bushels of grain for 

 export. But this is not all. So excellent an authority 

 as Mr. Edward Atkinson says that where we now sup- 

 port 50,000,000 people, "one hundred million could be 

 sustained without increasing the area of a single farm, 

 or adding one to their number, by merely bringing our 

 product up to our average standard of reasonably good 

 agriculture; and then there might remain for export 

 twice the quantity we now send abroad to feed the hungry 

 in foreign lands." If this be true (and it will hardly be 

 questioned by any one widely acquainted with our waste- 

 ful American farming), 1,500,000 square miles of culti- 

 vated land — less than one-half of our entire area this 

 side of Alaska — are capable of feeding a population of 

 900,000,000, and of producing an excess of 5,100,000,000 

 bushels of grain for exportation ; or, if the crops were all 

 consumed at home, it would feed a population one-eighth 

 larger ; viz. , 1,012,000,000. This corresponds very nearly 



