M.— AGRICULTURE. 259 



highly developed agriculture of all countries, shows a production well 

 above the average. A much closer calculation of production is possible 

 for Denmark than for other countries— the data are set out in Mr. Harald 

 Faber's paper before the Statistical Society in 1924. Denmark is a 

 country exjiorting agricultural produce chiefly in its most costly form as 

 meat, butter, and eggs, but the means for equating the export against 

 consumption is supplied in Mr. Faber's paper by the reduction of pro- 

 duction and imports to food units. Making the necessary corrections for 

 imports, it would appear that for the years 1909 to 1913 the population of 

 Denmark was maintained on 63 per cent, of the production of her own 

 land, or r82 acres per person. 



Putting the various estimates together, we arrive at the conclusion 

 that under the existing conditions of agriculture among the Western 

 peoples it requires something between 2 and 2| acres of cultivated land 

 to supply the needs of one unit of population living on the standard of 

 white peoples. 



We may confirm this estimate by a consideration of the growth of 

 population during the last century. Between 1800 and 1920 the number 

 of the white peoples increased from about 200 millions to about 700 

 millions. Data, however, for the land under cultivation in 1920 are very 

 imperfect, and, again, there was another factor of improved agriculture 

 which came into play in the first half of the nineteenth century. If we 

 take 1870 as our jumping-off point, we may estimate the increase in the 

 white man's numbers up to 1920 as approximately 225 millions. During 

 the same period the addition to the cultivated lands in Europe, United 

 States, Canada, Argentine, Australasia, and South Africa, the countries 

 which have provided the white races with food, has amounted to about 

 450 million acres. Again we reach a relation between cultivated land 

 and population of between 2 and 2| acres per head. 



This brings me to the central point of my argument, that an increase 

 of population is in the first instance dependent upon an increase in the 

 area of cultivated land. The expansion of the white peoples in the last 

 century was an event unprecedented in the world's history, and was 

 achieved only because of the vast areas of unoccupied land, chiefly in the 

 Americas, which suddenly became available for settlement through the 

 power conferred by the railroad, the steamship, and modern weapons. 

 It will be noticed that the population of Europe previously had become 

 comparatively stable, even as it has become approximately stabilised in 

 France at present — the expansion came with the opening up of the new 

 lands and in proportion to the amount that could be settled. 



Accepting as a basis for further discussion that imder the present 

 system of agricultiire something more than two acres of new land will 

 have to be brought under cultivation for each unit of increase in the 

 population; we may examine if any means exist of modifying this relation- 

 ship before considering its consequences. 



I have already suggested that a vegetarian diet is the more economical 

 of the resources of the soil, and that meat and all animal products like 

 milk and eggs are produced with an expenditure of energy which may be 

 as low as seven but also as high as twenty times the energy available 

 from them. It is true that to a certain extent the animal will utilise 



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