THE DEVELOPMENT OF WHEAT CULTURE IN NORTH AMERICA. 248 
91:4 acres. Such facts are eloquent of our future possibilities, not only 
in wheat, but in every product of the soil. What is true of the United 
States is more true of Canada, with its ample soils and sparse popu- 
lation. 
A South Carolina writer‘! asserts that tillage has in some cases 
made an increase per acre of more than eight bushels. Professor 
Harry Snyder, of the University of Minnesota, asserts that the ‘ yield 
per acre of wheat in the United States is much less than the soils are 
capable of producing.’ ? 
Mr. W. C. Ford, referring to the increased yields of France,* utters 
a general principle which should be the inspiration of every North 
American farmer and the basis of reasonable optimism for every loyal 
citizen of the New World: ‘To this march of scientific agriculture 
there is no end.’ California is said to have used six times as much 
artificial fertiliser in 1900 as in 1890, and one of the latest bulletins of 
the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station, of date June 1908, 
deals with the rotation of crops. Fertilisers, even in the Red River 
valley, are said to have increased the yield in some cases from 15 to 
26 bushels. Minnesota is not an old State, but is taking up the 
problems of the present and the future, and is quoted here, not as an 
exception, but as a sample of general practice throughout the United 
States. 
The other great factor in the wheat problem is the increase of 
population. Space forbids more than a word. The writer has given 
his views on this somewhat difficult subject in another place. In his 
belief the ordinary prophecies of increase in the coming generation 
are exaggerations. Mr. James J. Hill, for example, thinks we shall 
have 200,000,000 people in the United States by 1950. Let the reader 
observe the following rates of increase: 
Decade before 1880 __.... ... 80°2 per cent. increase 
Decade before 1890... .. 25°5 per cent. increase 
Decade before 1900 _... ... 20°7 per cent. increase 
Here is a drop of nearly 5 per cent. in each decade. The population in 
1899 (census of 1900) was 76,085,794. The population for the thir- 
teenth census, now about to be taken, may be estimated at 88,000,000. 
This’ gives an increase of 15°6 per cent. in the last decade and main- 
tains the descending rate of previous periods. If we allow a drop of 
only 1 per cent. for coming decades, there would be in 1949, the year 
of the seventeenth census, a population in round numbers of 
144,000,000. This is a sufficient comment on the prevailing extrava- 
gances in estimating our future numbers in the United States. It is, 
perhaps, more possible that 1950 will not see a population of more 
than 130,000,000. But let us grant 150,000,000 in no very distant 
future. At six bushels per capita, 900,000,000 would be needed at home. 
More than 700,000,000 bushels have already been raised in one year. 
An increase of four bushels per acre on present wheat lands would about 
fill the gap. An increase of ten to twelve million acres under good 
tillage would still provide for the present scale of export. It is safe to 
S.C. Bull., 66, 12. ? Art. ‘Wheat,’ Bncy. Americana, 
* Pop. Sci. Mo., 53,1898. p. 8. 
“Pop. Sci. Mo., September 1909, ‘ Capacity of the United States for Population.! 
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