'44 



SECTION \II. 

 UTILIZE SEMI-ARID ZONES. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



Increased Food Supplies during and after 

 the War can be raised by Dry-Farming 

 Methods.' 



One result of the European War will be, in fact, one 

 can well say that one result of the War has been to make 

 the world at large take stock of its larders and to note, with 

 dismay, how the cost of replenishing them tends to increase 

 just when we are least able to afford the money, and owing 

 to the stoppage or curtailment of trade (outside the require- 

 ments of the combatants) throughout the world : worst of 

 all is the prospect, or rather the certainty that the expense 

 of feeding the families, is bound to increase whilst the 

 incomes of the buyers, at any rate in Europe, are equally 

 certain to decrease for some time to come. 



Ask a butcher what efTect the War has had on his trade 

 now that the cost of meat is between 40 and 50 per cent, 

 dearer than it was before the War (beef now is nominally 

 IS. 6d. per lb.), but when you go to buy any, the butcher 

 either has none to sell, or assures you that what you see 

 is already bespoken, and he will tell you, at least those I 

 have asked did, that the public spend as much money on 

 meat as before but are unwilling to spend any more, and 

 therefore the higher the cost the less the weight delivered, 

 and so, although the cash paid and received may not alter 

 much, the amount of meat consumed must be very much 

 less. This, if it continues, may exceed the limit of public 

 good for, if in the past the man who works in the city has 

 tended to eat more meat than was necessary or even good 

 for him, that does not say that his dependents at home did, 

 and nowadays, in these times of stress and anxiety all of 



' Written in July, 1915, and reproduced from the Report of the 

 lileventh International Dry-Farming Congress. 



