THE GERMAN NATION 



277 



world's oat crop instead of the 25 per 

 cent that it was. Had our barley harvest 

 been as heavy per acre as that of the 

 German farmer, we would have had 375,- 

 000,000 bushels instead of 178,000,000. 

 If our potato growers had grown as 

 many tubers to the acre as the German 

 potato growers, our yield would have 

 been 865,000,000 bushels instead of 331,- 

 000,000. 



These figures are no more impressive 

 as showing to what degree of mastery of 

 the soil the Germans have come than they 

 are as showing what vast crops we will 

 be able to have in this country when our 

 farmers really learn how to farm. 



Where the American farmer uses 

 many acres and gets a small yield, the 

 German farmer uses a very few acres 

 and compels the ground to give him a 

 large yield. There are approximately the 

 same number of farms in Germany as in 

 the United States — 5,756,000 in Ger- 

 many and 5,737,000 in our country. Of 

 the German farms, 2,733,000 have less 

 than 2.47 acres in them ; of the American 

 farms, only 41,385 have three acres or 

 less. Of the remaining German farms, 

 2,306,000 have less than 25 acres in 

 them. We have 3,800,000 farms of 50 

 acres or more. The Germans have fewer 

 than 700,000 that are larger than 25 acres 

 in extent. 



The German farmer is not like the 

 American farmer when it comes to choos- 

 ing the good land and allowing that 

 which is not so good to lie idle. More 

 than 50 per cent of the farm area of the 

 United States is unimproved, while only 

 9 per cent of the available area in Ger- 

 many lies unused. 



Germany's great agricultural product- 

 ive capacity, which shows a greater per- 

 acre yield of every staple crop than any 

 other country in the world enjoys, has 

 come from a mastery of the simple, yet 

 complex, science of plant nutrition. We 

 know that humanity requires three things 

 for its existence — food, drink, and rai- 

 ment. The plant kingdom requires three 

 things that man can give it for its 

 growth — nitrogen, potash, and phos- 

 phorus. The Germans have nearly all 

 the actively worked potash deposits in 

 the world ; and recently they have dis- 



covered that instead of buying nitrogen 

 and phosphoric acid from South Amer- 

 ica, they can get nitrogen from the air, 

 from coke-ovens, and from the gasifica- 

 tion of peat and lignite. Through the 

 Thomas-Gilchrist process it has become 

 possible for them to get their phosphoric 

 acid as a by-product of smelting, the 

 slag being made into what is called phos- 

 phate flour. The result of these condi- 

 tions are that Germany sows more com- 

 mercial fertilizer than any other three 

 nations on earth. 



NOT e;OUAI, to demands 



But with all of the coaxing of the soil 

 that the German farmer administers his 

 lands are not able to respond with enough 

 provender to keep the nation from going 

 hungry. During a recent year Germany 

 had to import grain and other crop prod- 

 ucts to a value of a quarter-billion dol- 

 lars in excess of its exports of those com- 

 modities. It bought more groceries and 

 confections than it sold, the balance 

 against it being $120,000,000; and it im- 

 ported cattle, fats, and oils to a value of 

 a hundred million dollars in excess of 

 its exports of those commodities. 



Not only has Germany had to buy vast 

 quantities of food products in excess of 

 what it sold, but also vast quantities of 

 raw materials. The balance of its ac- 

 count in the matter of ores, asbestos,, 

 etc., amounted to a hundred million dol- 

 lars to its debit ; its purchases of skins 

 was $50,000,000 in excess of its sales, and 

 its foreign buying of woods and wooden- 

 ware $50,000,000 in excess of its foreign 

 sales. 



It is this inability of production of the 

 necessaries of life to meet the demands 

 of consumption that renders Germany's 

 economic problem a serious one in times 

 like the present, when producers are 

 turned consumers and the cannon's waste 

 is substituted for the reaper's saving. 



Germany's commercial progress 



In the past 25 years no other nation, 

 has made such a wonderful bid for for- 

 eign trade as Germany. Even the United 

 States did not build up its international 

 business during that period as rapidly. 

 Where our trade increased 275 per cent,. 



