FOOD AND POPULATION. 9 



»re:i shall have beeu doubled by 1910. as the social, political, fiscal and industrial condi- 

 tious are such as to ensure tard^' developnsent. This regiou, however, has the distinction 

 of Ijeing the only one where the area devoted to wheat has during the ninth decade, in- 

 creased faster than domestic lequirenieuts, 



Australasia contains much gOi)d wheat land, a small part of which has been brought 

 into use, but since ISSO tlie area in wheat has not increased as rapidly as domestic needs, 

 the acreage, relatively to population, having diminished nearly five percent, and the total 

 area under cultivation still more. 



InsufBcient population and deficient means of transportation preclude a rapid ex. 



tension of the Australasian wheat area, but the most potent cause of retardation will 



probably be fouud in long term pastoral least's which cover vast tracts of the most desira. 



ble lands, which can not be opened for cultivation until these leases expire, heuce there is 



little reason to expect much increaseof wheat exportation from Australasia during this 



century. 



We get a clear conception of the relative importance of Australasian agriculture 



when we remember that the total area under cereals and potatoes, in all the seven colonies 

 is but 5,190,000 acres and is but 37 per cent, of the area devoted to such crops in the State ot 

 Illinois, and the cultivated area ol the whole southern hemisphere, outside of the tropics, 

 is less than that of the one State named. 



The cereal contributions of India cannot increase and are liliely to diminish 

 rapidly, as the population is increasing more than one per cent, per annum while the area 

 under cultivatiun increases not one-third as fast and is not capable of much expansion 

 while the agricultural population, other than that of Bengal (where the Indian govern- 

 ment has not the power to increase the land tax owing to a permanent settlement had 

 in 1793), are constantly in a state of semi-star vation. 



The Indian wlieat area has shown no increase in twenty years, and there are 

 thoughtful citizens of India who anticipate the early cessation of exports from the 

 necessity of devoting the entire product of the fields to the subsistence of a population 

 increasing about 3,000,000 yearly, and that requires, even at the miserable Indian stand. 

 ard of living, the addition of nearly 2,000,000 new acres per annum. 



The political, social and industrial conditions environing the populations of Algeria, 

 Tunis and Morocco preclude any material expansion of wheat culture in Northern 

 Africa at an early day and similar conditions obtaining in the Asiatic dependencies o' 

 Turkey, no considerable additions to the wheat supply may be loolied for in that direc- 

 tion, while in Egypt the culture of wheat is being slowly displaced by that of sugar, cot- 

 ton and the cheaper foods required by an augmenting population. 



Siberia and North s-estern Canada remain as sources of possible supply, yet neither 

 possesses the requisite population for an early increase of wheat production on a scale at 

 all commensurate with the world's pressing needs. 



There seems no doubt, however, that in Siberia is an immense area suited tocoloniza- 

 ti.in and the production of cereals, but political apd social conditions, as well as the tenure 

 of the land, are such as to render it quite probable that it will not soon become an outlet 

 for the swarming European populations, other than those of Russia and the develop. 

 n:ent will be so slow as to afford little hope as to the supplies from this source beingof tha 

 nquired volume. 



It is contended that there exists in Northwestern Canada an extensive region 

 adapted to the profitable culture of cereals. While the fertility of much of this region ig 

 o- questionable it is practically unoccujiied, without the means of trauspi>itation and ita 

 adaptation to wheat culture still but liypothetical, as there has been, over the most of thia 

 ■vide area, no such contiuued culture as to dispel reasonable doubts (arising from its geo- 

 jraphical situation) as to the summer lieats being ordinarily sutBcient to rijien wheat. 

 But for this doubt we might say that, when occupieil. Northwestern Canada would add 

 materially to the world's supply of bread, but existing conditions, as to population and 

 transportation, are such that no material relief from the scarcity now impending, lay 

 reason of the existing and prospective deficient wheat and rye acreage of the world, can 

 be hoped for from this source as time is such an important element in the problem. A 



