20 SOME IMPENDING CHANGES. 



eluding lillO, adopting lower rates of iucrease, in population, especirdly after 1895 — thau 

 are geneially current, it being assumed that the number of immigrants will gradually 

 diminish from natural causes and restrictive legislation, and that as the ditliculties at. 

 tending I he maintenance of a family increase marriage will occur later in life and smaller 

 families result. On the other hand, in estimating the increase in the area likely to be 

 under cultivation, the rates adopted are higher than the great scarcity of tillable land and 

 the rates of increase — progressively lessening — obtaining in recent periods warrant, it 

 being deemed best to maUe this estimate so libeial that if there be error it shall take the 

 form of a larger area than is likely to be in cultivation.* 



Estimates of the area required for domestic con-umption are based upon the mean 

 of population and the area under such crop during the last ten years, as reported by the 

 Department of Agriculture, after deducting from such area the proportion employed in 

 growing that part of the crop exported and the acreage per capita quota stated is that 

 found necessary to produce only so much of the staple farm products as is required for 

 home consumption except in the matter of cotton and tobacco, which it is assumed we 

 shall continue to export long after we find it necessary to import food, as the cotton lands 

 are, as a rule, but poor wheat lands, and the commercial world will long be unable to dis- 

 pense with American cotton, the price of which will advance as do the prices for other 

 agricultural staples; hence southern fields will continue to bring the most satisfactory 

 returns while devoted to cotton growing. 



Eliminating the doubtful factors from the computations, it is found that the popu- 

 lation will, in 1895, probably reach 70,000,000, each unit requiring 3.16 cultivated acres to 

 provide the staple food products, provender and materials for manufacture consumed at 

 home, and permit the exportation of the same proportion of cotton and tobacco as now, 

 the aggregate requirements being 221,200,000 acres as against the 220.000,000 which it is 

 estimated will then be in cultivation, the deficit amounting to 1,200,000 acres and indi- 

 cating the importation of food. 



At the close of the century population will probably have increased to 77,000,000, 

 and, consumption continuing at the same rate percapitaas now, weshall need the product 

 of 243,000 000 acres; and with but 226,000,000 in cultivation, the neceesity for the importa- 

 tion of fond will long have been imperative. 



Ten years later it is estinuited that population will have increased to 90,Q00,000, the 

 area in cultivation to 234 000 000 acres and the requirements to 284,000,000— the dficit 

 reaching 50,000,000 acres, or 18 per cent., and necessitating the importation of nearly one- 

 fifth the food and provender consumed, or a proportionate lowering of the standard of 

 living. 



During the twenty years which will be required to add 27,000,000 to our population 

 that of Europe will probably increase 70.000,000, that of the La Plata countries 4,000,000, 

 and that of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and other European colonic 9 

 fully 10,000,000; so that by 1910 the wheat-eating populations of European blood will have 

 increased at least 100,000,000, requiring an addition to the world's supply of rj e and wheat 

 of no less than 700,000,000 bushels, of which about 450,000,000 bushels should be wheat. 



It is barely possible that in twenty years the European product may increase 30,- 

 000,000 bushels that of North America 50,000,000, that of South America 30,000,000, that 

 of Australasia 20.000,000, and that of India, Persia, etc., 20.000,000, making a possible total 

 Increase in product of 150,000,000 bushels as against an increase in requirements three and 

 a half times as great. Any increase whatever, either in the United States, Europe or 

 India, is more than doubtful, as the European area emplojed in growing wheat and rye 

 has shown no expansion during the last twenty years; the lands of India are fully occu- 

 pied and the miserably nourished population ever pressing with increasing weight upon 

 inadequate means of subsistence, and in the United States the wheat area is no greater 

 now than in 1880. Moreover, the lands of Europe are so fully occupied as to preclude an 

 increa.se in cereal production except in Russia and the Danuoian countries, and any in- 

 creiise of the cereal area in Eastern Europe will be more than oflset by the continued 

 conversion of grain fields to the growth of other necessary products in Western Europe- 

 products that will not bear transportation as well as grain. 



•See "Exhibit 1" of the "Epitome of tiie Agricultural Situation" following page 24, 



