269 



SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



material otherwise of little service to man, like milling offals and low- 

 grade fodder crops — roots, hay, or straw. None the less, if the maximum 

 of population supported by a given area of land is the objective, 

 vegetarianism becomes increasingly necessary, as we see among the 

 crowded populations of India and China. At the same time, the tillage 

 of lands now given up to the grazing of animals becomes possible because 

 of cheapness of labour resulting from a redundant population. Most of 

 the beef and mutton supply comes 'from land left untilled because of 

 the costliness of labour relative to products ; the meat may represent a 

 very low level of production from the land and yet a high cash return 

 for the labour expended. Hence the apparent paradox of grazing being 

 general in Middlesex because of the proximity of London. Another item 

 of waste which would have to be eliminated in case of stern necessity is 

 the conversion of potential food into alcoholic drink. Great Britain 

 ferments the equivalent of one and a half million acres of barley. France 

 devotes 4,000,000 acres, nearly 4|- per cent, of her cultivated area, to vine- 

 yards. Without going so far as to say that beer or wine possesses no 

 food value, it is certainly not half of that which could have been grown 

 from the land thus used for the production of drink. In such matters it 

 is vain to prophesy, but I cannot help feeling that the race (not 

 individuals) which cuts out meat and alcohol in order to multiply is 

 of the permanent slave type destined to function like worker bees in the 

 ultimate community. 



The second question that merits very careful consideration is whether 

 the current agriculture cannot be intensified so as to bring about a great 

 increase of production from the existing area of cultivated land. A 

 cursory examination of the average yields of our chief crops in different 

 countries shows what an immense potential increase of production is here 

 open. The average yield of wheat (1921 to 1924) for all the countries 

 of the world collecting statistics was 13' 2 busliels per acre; the average 

 yield in Denmark for the same period was 41 '4 bushels per acre, more than 

 three times as much. Of course the area devoted to wheat in Denmark 

 is about 200,000 acres in all, or 3 per cent, of her arable land, whereas 

 the wheat acreage of the world amounts to about 250 million acres. The 

 mass production of wheat in the world is from countries of low yield ; 

 more than half is grown in countries in which the average yield is less than 

 13 bushels per acre. 



Recorded total 



932 (estimated for all countries 1,250). 



