CHAPTER XXVI 



FOOD SUPPLY PROBLEM 



DURING the past two hundred years the United States has 

 supplied foreign countries so lavishly with foodstuffs that the 

 problem of a future food supply at home was scarcely thought of. 

 But now that the tide is turning, now that we are importing some 

 corn and some meat, it is an opportune time to pause and take an 

 inventory of conditions as they are, and to endeavor to form an 

 estimate of conditions as they soon will be. 



Food Problem. The food supply problem is a dual problem 

 (1) How much food is produced? (Fig. 90.) (2) How many people 

 are there to eat this food? We know that population is increasing. 

 We know that the food supply is increasing also. But the present 

 and the prospective ratio between the increase in population and 

 the increase in food supply is the vital question that concerns us. 

 Some of the most important literature of the world has been 

 devoted to a discussion of one or more aspects of this problem. 

 T. R. Malthus, the British clergyman, Liebig, the German agri- 

 cultural chemist, and Sir Wm. Cropkes, the British scientist, to 

 name but three great thinkers, have all made notable contributions 

 to the world's knowledge of this problem. The most widely 

 known of these three is doubtless Malthus. Since he treats of the 

 problem from the population standpoint, his doctrine will first 

 receive attention. 



The Malthusian Theory of Population. Like a good many 

 Englishmen of the " upper classes" of that day, Malthus was inter- 

 ested in " Plans of improving the poor." By battling with his critics 

 for some 27 years (from 1798 to 1825) he finally worked out his 

 conclusions that the trouble with the poor was their poverty; 

 that their poverty was due to low wages; that low wages were due 

 to the oversupply of labor, namely, to the oversupply of poor 

 people, and that consequently the one effective remedy was to 

 produce fewer laborers. This limitation of the supply of labor 

 would raise wages, leave more food for each laborer, and not 

 greatly inconvenience the "upper classes." "We must show the 

 poor," said Malthus, "that the withholding of the supplies of 

 labor is the only possible way of really raising its price, and that 

 they themselves being the possessors of this commodity have alone 



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