CHAPTER III 



THE GROWTH OF MANUFACTURES AND THE PRESENT 

 FOOD EXPORTING COUNTRIES 



In the last chapter the United States was shown 

 to have absorbed a larger amount of her own 

 food-stuffs. Agriculture, it is true, has increased 

 in prosperity. 1 Manufactures have expanded 

 more rapidly. A larger proportion of the popu- 

 lation became engaged in non-agricultural em- 

 ployments. This conclusion must be subjected 

 to two forms of test. The direct test, the 

 relative increase in rural and urban population, 

 is not of much assistance, for a large number 

 of the rural population, even if they are engaged 

 in agricultural production, may not be producers 

 of foodstuffs. Cotton and flax, both extensively 

 cultivated in the United States of America and 

 other countries which supply the bulk of the 

 world's cereals, show the extent to which this 

 test would prove unreliable. The indirect tests 

 are more conclusive. Of the United States 

 exports, the average percentage of agricultural 



1 See appendix, giving extracts from two recent 

 articles in The Times, on American Agriculture, 



2 5 



