100 THE FARMER OF TO-MORROW 



determine how much of the nineteen hundred 

 million acres of our realm will eventually go 

 under the plow. 



A loaf of bread, one pound of bread, costs 

 two tons of water in the making. 



A pound of beef requires from fifteen to 

 twenty tons. 



A ton of hay pumps five hundred tons of 

 water out of the soil before it is ripe for 

 harvest. 



The food required by one adult human be- 

 ing in one year represents the "water duty" 

 of five acre-feet an acre of water five feet 

 deep one million and a half gallons. This 

 calculation (Year Book Department of Agri- 

 culture, 1910) is based on the assumption that 

 one thousand parts of water are required to 

 produce one part of dry matter. Plants drink 

 their food in dilute solutions and exhale the 

 moisture into the air in the process. The 

 prosperity of the Middle West requires a 

 thirty-five inch rainfall, annually. Was it a 

 mere coincidence that the two great panics of 

 recent years, 1873 and 1893, followed periods 

 of prolonged drought throughout the Middle 

 West? 



An accident of Nature ages gone by, a 



