THE DEVELOPMENT OF WHEAT CULTURE IN NORTH AMERICA. 241 
This depends on two factors—possible production and the possible 
population. As to both of these factors and the resulting future in 
export trade, opinions differ greatly. So acute an observer of our affairs 
as M. Leroy-Beaulieu,' reterring to the fact that for some years 
increase in wheat exports has not been more rapid than growth of 
population, believes this will continue to hold true. He grants that 
export wheat is likely to remain at its present high level for some time 
to come, but little increase is probable, the predominance of agricul- 
tural exports will pass and manufactured products will take their 
place. 
Mr. James J. Hill is yet more emphatic,? holding that ‘ we are 
approaching the point where our wheat product will be needed for our 
own uses, and we shall cease to be an exporter of grain. There is still 
some room in Canada, but it will soon be filled.’ That there is some 
inconsistency in Mr. Hill’s utterance appears in the view expressed 1n 
the preceding paragraph of his address, that only one-half of our farm 
areas is improved, and that this half might be made, by ordinary care 
and intelligence, to double its production. 
Similar views are set forth by Mr. J. C. Williams,* who, referring 
to a falling-off in production and the increase of home use, thinks it 
“quite possible’ that the United States will become a permanent 
importer of wheat under normal conditions. To these opinions may 
be added that of Dondlinger:+ ‘ With the increase of population and 
local consumption, the internal and export movement of wheat will 
greatly decrease, and American wheat will be a factor of declining 
importance in the international grain trade.’ By American this author 
no doubt means the product of the United States. He holds that 
diversification and rise of land values will decrease wheat acreage in 
the west, though this loss may be in a measure offset by the adoption 
of new areas in the east and south. 
In addition to these recent views it is not out of place to observe 
that other and earlier prophecies now read curiously in the light of 
history. Edgar * quotes the conviction of John H. Klippart, writing 
in Ohio in 1859, that the limits of the wheat area in the United States 
had been reached, and that, without increase of yield, the surplus 
would ‘ by the next census be measured by the algebraic quantity of 
minus.’ So late as 1884 a high foreign authority expressed the 
opinion that the wheat trade in America had reached its limit, because 
of the exhaustion of the soil and the prohibitive cost of freight from 
remote districts. These forecasts may well have less real basis than 
those of recent years, but they at least hint at-the pitfalls of prophecy 
and admonish us that human wisdom rarely covers all the unknown 
factors of a hard problem. 
It will be prudent, therefore, to discuss the first of the two great 
factors in a wholly general manner. Can the United States largely 
increase its crop of wheat? Another wheat expert, Mr. HE. C. Parker, 
writing in the ‘ Century Magazine’ in September 1908, less than one 
The United States in the Twentieth Century. 
Conference of Governors 1908, Proceedings, p. 72. 
Science, N.S., xxi. 1905, p. 458. 
The Book of Wheat, p. 305. 
The Story of a Grain of Wheat, p. 87. 
1909. R 
oeertwrns 
