170 



NATURE 



[December 21, 1899 



content with pointing out that if his previsions are not 

 realised then existing conditions must change, and the 

 future inquirer should be vigilant in observing the 

 changes. Sir William Crookes has not done this, but 

 has assumed that present conditions will continue, and 

 that his prophecy must come true almost to the letter, 

 which places the discussion altogether on a wrong basis. 

 The handling of the statistical data also, as I have said, 

 is not what one should have expected from Sir William 

 Crookes. To begin with, the relative place of wheat as 

 an article of food supply to the Caucasian race appears to 

 be very much exaggerated. Sir William Crookes, though 

 he does not say so explicitly, really speaks of wheat as the 

 principal food. 



" My chief subject," he says, " is of interest to the whole 

 world — to every race — to every human being. It is of 

 urgent importance to-day, and it is a life and death 

 question for generations to come. I mean the question 

 of food supply. Many of my statements you may think 

 are of the alarmist order. Certainly they are depressing ; 

 but they are founded on stubborn facts. They show that 

 England and all civilised nations stand in deadly peril of 

 not having enough to eat. As mouths multiply food 

 resources dwindle. Land is a limited quantity, and the 

 land that will grow wheat is absolutely dependent on 

 difficult and capricious natural phenomena." 



And more to the same effect. The identification of 

 "wheat" in particular with "food" in general without 

 any discussion of the relative importance of wheat among 

 food articles, in the economy of the peoples concerned, 

 is thus complete. The fact is, however, that wheat is 

 only a fractional part of the food of some of the peoples 

 who consume wheat, especially of the European peoples 

 and the people of the United States, who are by far the 

 largest consumers, and that it could be dispensed with 

 and replaced by other articles wholly or in great part if 

 necessity should arise. Take the case of the United 

 Kingdom alone. Our imports of wheat and wheat-flour 

 last year amounted to rather less than thirty-eight millions 

 sterling, and if we allow for home production we may 

 place our national expenditure on wheat at about fifty 

 millions annually at the outside. Our total annual ex- 

 penditure on food must be about eight times that sum. 

 Our expenditure on imported food alone — meat, cereals, 

 sugar, rice, &c. — was last year over 170 millions sterling, 

 and if we add to that the home production of meat, dairy 

 produce and cereals, we very soon get to a total figure of 

 400 millions or thereabouts. Sir William Crookes is thus 

 anxious about an article of food on which we depend only 

 to the extent of one-eighth. It may be rejoined that 

 wheat is specially important on physiological grounds, 

 but if so, these grounds should have been stated, and there 

 is certainly no statement in the paper. The money test, 

 the test of actual expenditure, is in any case not an unfair 

 one. It would be the same, we believe, if Sir William 

 Crookes were going farther afield. The people of the 

 United States are very like ourselves as regards food 

 consumption, and, to some extent, the peoples of France 

 and Germany ; while among others, whose diet is different 

 from ours, wheat is still relatively unimportant, because, 

 though they do not consume meat as the peoples of this 

 country and the United States do, yet articles like rye 

 and potatoes really constitute their main food, wheat 

 being almost an article of luxury by comparison, and not 

 NO. 1573. VOL. 61] 



a principal food. Nowhere, according to Sir William 

 Crookes' own [showing, is so much wheat consumed per 

 head as in France, the United Kingdom, and the United 

 States, the very countries in which its relative importance 

 is lowest as an article of diet. It may be suggested, then, 

 that in a scientific inquiry as to the possible shortage of 

 food supplies in the near future the various chief articles 

 of food of the peoples concerned, such as meat, dairy 

 produce, fish, potatoes and sugar, should have been con- 

 sidered, and not merely wheat. There is another reason 

 for this course. Suppose, as I believe to be the case, that 

 a large part of the earth's surface is now used for the 

 production of expensive articles of food like meat and 

 dairy produce with the minimum of cultivation, the most 

 that could happen as supplies became short might be a 

 change of cultivation, involving some addition, but 

 perhaps no great addition, to the cost of production, but 

 resulting in a simultaneous increase of the quantities of 

 meat, dairy produce and cereals produced. The play, 

 then, between different articles of food must be considered. 

 If one article like wheat is taken by itself, it is plainly only 

 a question of price. At a point, the soil now used in 

 growing meat and dairy produce by means of permanent 

 pasturage could easily be taken to produce wheat or 

 other cereals without any diminution, but rather along 

 with an increase, of the production of meat and dairy 

 produce at the same time, though at perhaps rather more 

 cost. At what point will shortage of all supplies, taken 

 together, be felt, and how ? are the questions for the man 

 of science and agriculturist, and they are not to be an- 

 swered by the sort of rule of thumb which is here applied 

 to wheat. 



There is yet another serious ovei'sight, in my judgment, 

 when we look at the paper from a purely statistical point 

 of view. Sir William Crookes goes into great detail as to 

 the acreage under wheat in different countries at different 

 periods, but regarding the other side of the comparison, 

 the population of bread-eaters and their rate of growth,, 

 he gives no details at all He confines himself to the 

 following assertion : 



"In 1 87 1 the bread-eaters of the world numbered 

 371,000,000. In 1 88 1 the numbers rose to 416,000,000 ; 

 in 1891 to 472,600,000; and at the present time they 

 number 516,500,000. The augmentation of the world's 

 bread-eating population in a geometrical ratio is evi- 

 denced by the fact that the yearly aggregates grow pro- 

 gressively larger. In the early seventies they rose 

 4,300,000 per annum, while in the eighties they increased 

 by more than 6,000,000 per annum, necessitating annual 

 additions to the bread supply nearly one-half greater 

 than sufficed twenty-five years ago." 



Clearly a statement like this ought not to be made in a 

 scientific paper, where a great deal turns upon the state- 

 ment, without the details and references enabling any 

 one to verify and appreciate it. Of course, it is quite 

 possible for any one knowing population statistics, and 

 content to classify large populations as bread-eating, 

 without inquiring in detail what proportion in each 

 population is really bread-eating, to make up a state- 

 ment for himself; but there are cases of difficulty in any 

 such grouping, and we are entitled to know what Sir 

 William Crookes has done. In a scientific question like 

 this he should have been more specific for another 



