258 



ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



ture to the uses of man since 1870 than we have been able to do in the 

 two centuries of our history hitherto. In the last thirty years we have 

 doubled our population and we have more than doubled the area of our 

 cultivated crops. 



Shall we be producing two blades of grass in the place of one that 

 grows today when the population has again doubled? Or will our ina- 

 bility to produce the two blades prevent population from doubling? 



It is not here asserted that the two blades of grass will be produced. 

 I believe however, it is possible to do so, but if it is to be done, it must 

 be done in a vastly different way than it has been done in the past 

 thirty years. The problem will be vastly different. The problems will 

 be solved by those who have studied organic chemistry and the sciences 

 relating to life rather than by those who have studied mathematics and 

 the laws of physics. In short the problems of the future will be the 

 problems of the agriculturist rather than, as in the past, the problems 

 of the engineer. The great engineering professions need no defensfe 

 from me and I will certainly not be misunderstood by this comparison as 

 minimizing their importance or that of any other form of useful knowl- 

 edge to the welfare of future generations. 



Is there any immediate evidence that the cultivated area may fail to 

 keep up with the increasing population. The evidence is found in the 

 statistics of the' Department of Agriculture at Washington. The cul- 

 tivated area has not acually decreased as has the number of farm ani- 

 mals but the area has decreased in proportion to population, about 10 per 

 cent since 1890, and is now less in proportion to population than it has 

 been at any time in twenty years. 



But how this be? Regard for a moment our unparalleled prosperity. 

 If this is the effect of a decrease in acreage, by all means let us have some 

 more decrease. The reply is simply that the seasons have been propi- 

 tious. Not since the last half of the decade of the seventies has this 

 country had such yields per acre as during the years 1895-99. In no 

 other five years since has the farmer received such large returns in crops 

 for labor expended. A single illustration will indicate what this really 



