Land Problems and National Welfare 



of estimating the produce of the land. For 

 instance, on virgin soil with up-to-date machinery 

 one man could look after a large number of 

 acres and produce a prodigious amount of food- 

 stuff, qua " man-production," but the yield per 

 acre would be small This is actually the case 

 in America. 



Again, if the present school of economy 

 maintains, I can almost picture the day when 

 there will be but one British Agriculturist left — 

 zealously watched over by the Government as 

 an object of historic interest. This engaging 

 object might beat the record of production per 

 man, but he would not do much to feed the 

 nation. 



Mr. Crawford, in a paper read before the 

 Royal Statistical Society some twelve years 

 ago, estimated that if we grew at home all the 

 foodstuffs we imported, we should want in the 

 United Kingdom an increased area of arable 

 land amounting to 23,670,000 acres apportioned 

 as follows : 



For Wheat ... 5,900,000 acres. 



4,000,000 

 2,200,000 

 4,640,000 

 6,930,000 



23,670,000 acres. 



Beef 



IMutton 



Dairy Produce ... 

 Feedins: stuffs for animals 



In my table of suggested increase of home 

 produce I do not mention imported cattle food, 



96 



