4 THE SPIRIT OF THE SOIL 



was not until 1878 that the electric dynamo became 

 a practical machine ? In ancient Greece the 

 mariner who voyaged as far as the Pillars of Hercules 

 in Spain was a traveller expected to bring back 

 stories of monsters and other wonders, but to-day 

 there is not a portion of the earth's surface which is 

 not more or less exactly mapped. 



Despite the poverty of the world, we are for the 

 moment living in a period of abundance, as witness 

 the violence of the attacks made upon Malthus, 

 who wrote at a period when it seemed that man had 

 reached the limits of his food-supplies. Between 

 then and now intensive agriculture has arisen as a 

 new art ; the great granaries of the world have been 

 available for all, thanks to the development of the 

 vast transport agencies. The mighty deposits of 

 nitrates in Chili and Peru, Stassfurt, and elsewhere, 

 have been mined to provide the farmer with the 

 necessary fertilizers, and at the moment the supply 

 is ample for the world's needs. 



Those who care to look forward to the world's 

 future, however, are uttering, Cassandra-like, doleful 

 prophecies. The inroads made on the great forests 

 of the United States, especially, have been so serious 

 that the world is called upon to face the danger of a 

 timber famine. Commissions have been appointed 

 to estimate how long we may expect the coal reserves 

 which are being worked at a rapidly progressive 

 speed to continue to furnish their abundant energy 

 to the world. It is recognized that the time will 

 come, and is not so very far distant, when Canada, 

 the United States, and the other great wheat-pro- 



