56 THE FARMER OF TO-MORROW 



purse which has doubled its contents in less 

 than ten years. 



The reason begins and ends with the hunger 

 of the world and the supply of the land the 

 limited floor space available for producing 

 food. William H. Taft, in a recent address 

 before a Conservation Congress, predicted that 

 the United States will have attained a popula- 

 tion of 200,000,000 in another fifty years at 

 the present rate of increase. The industry of 

 farming represents a capital of nearly fifty 

 billion dollars. The single item of land, with- 

 out buildings, accounts for twenty-eight bil- 

 lions of this stupendous sum. To what total 

 in dollars and cents will the item of land attain 

 when each acre of to-day is called on to feed 

 two mouths for every one it feeds now? We 

 are already ceasing to export wheat. 



Is it not a remarkable fact that an industry 

 which still depended on a subsidy at the begin- 

 ning of the present century, for further ex- 

 pansion, should have attained a capitalization 

 nearly fifty times that of the world's greatest 

 business combination in one decade? Land, 

 water, timber and minerals, in the beginnings 

 of a nation, are valuable only in proportion 



