NEED OF IMPROVEMENT ' 37 
and the enhanced value of lands, the time will come when it 
will be difficult, if not impossible, to support as large an animal 
population as we should like! Surely it is high time even now 
to push forward this increase of efficiency to the end that values 
shall not be wasted, and to the further end that as population - 
increases, our animal friends shall be less a burden upon us as 
we continue to enjoy their service. 
Further improvement needed. With some of our older 
species the service is entirely satisfactory as to quality, but with 
most of the newer and many of the older there is yet much to 
be desired. 
For example, wheat and oats are, so far as we know, ideal in 
their quality, except that we should like to see a larger propor- 
tion of strong plants with less shrunken grain. This, however, 
expresses itself in a matter of amount rather than in quality of 
food product. The cow gives us good milk, but not enough of 
it for the feed she consumes, and so others might be mentioned 
that are satisfactory except as to amount. 
Coming to corn the case is different. This is preéminently 
a stock food, but it is deficient in both nitrogen and minerals, 
especially phosphorus. Can this deficiency be wholly or partly 
remedied by mixture with other crops, such as alfalfa, for ex- 
ample, or does something remain to be done in the way of 
altering the chemical composition of corn itself? If the latter, 
the indications are that we can accomplish it. 
Horses are now certainly fast enough. A two-minute gait is 
at the rate of thirty miles an hour, which is neither safe nor 
desirable for ordinary use. However, in the opinion of city 
teamsters, the horse is not yet large enough. For their business 
1 Let the student exercise his imagination in picturing the condition as we 
approach the density of population of China, 400 to the square mile. How 
then shall animals be kept? Our population has doubled four times in the last 
hundred years. What will be the condition if this rate of increase should con- 
tinue another hundred years? Let the student make some estimates covering 
this question. Let him also determine the effect of education upon coming 
problems of this kind. 
