80 AN OPEN LETTER. 



For eanh 1,000 units added to llio population we must add 230 milkcowa andagiven 

 number of horses, and but for tlie surplus of beeves now existing we should have to add 

 600 to 530 cattle (other tbau milk cows) and for every cow, steer or horse added we must 

 add from six to seven acres to our farms, and of this from two and a half to three acres 

 must be in pasture. 



Instead of converting pastures into grain fields we miist add to such pastures in a 

 definite ratio, and having now more wheat land than is required to meet the demands of 

 our own people we shall take these surplus wheat fields and grow thereon the corn, hay, 

 oats, rye, barley, buckwheat and potatoes required at hilme as well as the tobacco and 

 cotton we consume and export, and when all the land that is now iu cultivation, and that 

 will, in the meantime, be brought into cultivation, is employed in i)roducing the food, 

 provender and materials of manufacture wbich our people require — as it will be not later 

 than 1896— we must either cease to export cotton and grow grain upon the cotton lands, 

 lower the standard of living, or import food. 



Such is the relationship between population and the production of staples that there 

 is but one crop we can reduce the area of, for more than one year, and that is wheat. 



It is true that we now have about 2,000,000 acres more of corn land than is required 

 by the existing population, but population will certainly overtake tliecorn fields not later 

 than 18i)3, and in all probability iu 1892, and tben we must either reduce the per capita 

 consumption of corn or convert wheat lands into corn fields. 



When I say there is now 2,000,000 acres surplus corn acreage, I mean that (he pro- 

 duct of this two million acres now r/ocs abroad in the form of grain, meat and dairy 

 products, and that not later than 1S93 or 1894 we shall consume at home every pound of 

 such product made from an average crop of corn unless we shall tben have converted a 

 part of the wheat lands into corn fields, a« the additions made yearly to our population 

 necessitate an addition, annually, of 1,800,000 acres to the corn fields. 



Etisling, as there does, an exact relationship between population and all the staple 

 products of the farm— such ratio varying only as varies the standard of living — when we 

 can determine the proportions of this relationship we can estimate the acreage and pro- 

 duct required with just as much certainty as a finance minister can estimate the amount 

 of reven ue from auy impost. 



Having ascertained that the average yield of wheat, for a period of ten years, is 12.1 

 bushels per acre, and that the annual consumption has been 5.73 bushels per capita, we 

 are able to say that, with average yields, each unit of the population requires 0.48 of an 

 acre in wheat, and knowing the population and the rate at which it is increasing, we can 

 assume that there will be over 70,000,000 people inhabiting the United States in 1895 aud 

 that tliey will— with an average yield— require the product of nearly 34,000 000 acres in 

 wheat, and, applying the same process to each of the other farm staples, we determine 

 that they will require 83,300,000 acres in corn, 27,300,000 acres iu oats, 44,800.000 acres in 

 hay, 10 ."JOO.OOO acres in barley, rye, buckwheat, potatoes and— including that exported— 

 21,700,000 acres in cotton, ma'^iug a total of over 221,000,000 acres. 



If we can determine, approximately, the area which will then be in cultivation — 

 and I hold we can— we can then say how much in excess or how much short of current 

 domestic needs our products will be with average yields, and this is what I have attempted 

 to do in Exhibit 1 of the "Epitome"* sent you, and this, with the world's (well ascer- 

 tained) deficient wheat and rye acreage, and which it will be wholly impossible to make 

 good and then have such acreage keep pace with the increase in population, cause me to 

 believe that, not later than 1896, any acre of land in the United States that will, without 

 more than the average cost for fertilization and cultivation, produce average crops of food, 

 forage or fiber will sell readily for one hundred golden dollars. 



In this connection permit me to say that I have but just returned from a journey 

 through Illinois, Iowa and the other grain-growing States, and when in Iowa was a.ssured 

 by farmers, merchants and bankers that the selling price of Iowa farms had advanced 

 fully 2i pL'rcent. within a twelve month with the demand brisk at the advance, and I 

 found similar conditions obtaining iu,Illinoia and the othrt- great food-producing Slates. 

 "sice "EDilome of the AKilcullJir.al Situatloi^" following page 24. 



