M.— AGRICULTURE. 257 



We must approach the question in a more empirical fashion and 

 endeavour to ascertain the existing relation between the land in use and 

 the people fed by it. Taking again the estimates of the Royal Society's 

 Committee, it concluded that the United Kingdom production of food for 

 the five pre-war years was 42 per cent, of the food consumed. 46-7 million 

 acres of cultivated land then produced 42 per cent, of the food consumed 

 by a mean population of 45*2 millions, which works out to 2'5 acres to eacli 

 unit of the population. This figure, however, is somewhat misleading, in 

 that it does not do justice to British agriculture, since our farming is to a 

 considerable degree concentrated on the more costly elements of diet like 

 meat or milk rather than upon cereals and sugar. For example, 49 per 

 cent, of the food production at home, as against only 24 per cent, of the 

 imported food, consisted of animal products. 



Working on a different basis, Sir Thomas Middletou estimated that 

 100 acres of British land fed forty-five to fifty persons, so that his estimate 

 is over 2 but less than 2| acres for the maintenance of the unit of 

 population. Middleton proceeds to estimate that 100 acres in Germanv 

 fed seventy to seventy-five persons, or TS to 1'5 acres per unit, the 

 advantage being due on the one hand to a much higher proportion of 

 arable laud in Germany, and on the other to a dietary in which the energy 

 was obtained more economically, i.e. from potatoes compared with meat, 

 and in meat from pork rather than from beef. 



The importance of this relation between cultivated area and population 

 is so great, and the calculations by which it can be ascertained are so 

 approximate and subject to so many estimates of a speculative kind, that 

 I may be allowed to set out various results obtained by different methods. 



We may begin by comparing population and area of cultivated land for 

 all European countries except Russia, to which we add the United States, 

 Canada, Argentine, Australia, and New 2;ealand, as the white countries 

 which are also the chief exporters of food to Europe. I exclude all 

 Oriental countries because in them the mass of the population possesses a 

 different standard of living, and I have excluded the other South American 

 States and the Union of South Africa and other African colonies because 

 they all possess a very large ' native ' population and their exports do not 

 bulk large in the food account of Europe. We must recognise, however, 

 that the errors in the calculation will be loaded on to one side, because 

 all the unenumerated countries, Russia and the tropical lands, are to a 

 greater or less degree exporters and not importers of food. Sugar from 

 the East and West Indies, rice and similar Oriental cereals, copra and other 

 edible oils for margarine, are but a few of the agricultural products which 

 the white population consumes from land outside our immediate purview. 

 However, with this proviso we find that in the States enumerated there 

 are 464" 1 million hectares of land under cultivation and a population of 

 481 -5 million persons, or 2*4 acres per head. 



In the United States about 356 million acres are in cultivation : from 

 this may be deducted as producing exported materials, for cotton 24, for 

 wheat 16, for maize 2, for meat products 22 million acres, or 65 million 

 acres in all. Other products are exported but may be regarded as balanced 

 by imports, so that we find 291 million acres of cultivated land devoted 

 to supplying a population of approximately 112 millions, or 2-6 acres per 

 unit of population. 



1926 S 



