Vol. XXIX, No. 1 



WASHINGTON 



January, 1916 



HOW THE WORLD IS FED 



By William Joseph Showalter 



AT THE present juncture, while 



/\ great issues of world politics hang 

 x\ critically upon the effort of the 

 Entente Powers in the European war to 

 force the Central Powers into submission 

 by drawing around them the steel ring 

 of war and the cold ring of hunger, it is 

 more than interesting to take an inven- 

 tory of the world's market basket, and to 

 pause for a passing moment to see what 

 effect war has had on the world's food 

 supply in the past, what effect it is having 

 today, and, if possible, to forecast its ef- 

 fect upon the future food problems of 

 the earth. 



If we go back one hundred years it will 

 be discovered that France was facing al- 

 most the same problems then that Ger- 

 many is facing today. England's fleet 

 blockaded France's ports then just as they 

 blockade Germany's today, and over-sea 

 foodstuffs had little chance to reach the 

 French. 



How far this went, and how great an 

 effect it had on conditions in Napoleon's 

 Empire, is revealed by the fact that sugar 

 sold for two dollars a pound. And that 

 the world is not sugar-hungry today is 

 due to the steps taken by Napoleon to 

 overcome the effect of the blockade on 

 sugar. Years before, some Prussian 

 scientists had been trying to get sugar 

 from the beet, and, under the patronage 

 of the King of Prussia, Frederick Wil- 

 liam III, succeeded in their task. 



Napoleon borrowed their ideas, set up 

 beet-sugar factories around Lille, and 



gave to the beet-sugar industry that im- 

 petus which has resulted in its develop- 

 ment to a point where it yields half of the 

 world's supply of sugar (see page 86). 



WAR AND CANNED GOODS 



The Little Corporal saw himself seri- 

 ously embarrassed in the matter of food 

 supplies for his army. He wanted some- 

 thing for his men besides things that 

 were dried or smoked — a desire that was 

 enhanced by his knowledge that millions 

 of dollars in valuable but perishable foods 

 were wasted because of the lack of ade- 

 quate means of preserving them. 



He therefore offered a prize of twelve 

 thousand francs to any one who would 

 devise a practicable method of preserv- 

 ing such foodstuffs. Such a method was 

 quickly evolved, and out of it has grown 

 the world's canning industry— one of the 

 important steps that civilization has taken 

 in the direction of insuring mankind 

 against famine (see also page 66). 



It is not improbable that the present 

 war will bring to mankind new methods 

 in the feeding of the race that Avill prove 

 as important as those brought out by the 

 Napoleonic wars. It has been announced 

 lately that the Germans have devised a 

 new synthetic method of producing pro- 

 tein. It is said that they feed yeast with 

 a combination of sugar and nitrogen from 

 the air, and thus secure that most im- 

 portant of all of the elements that enter 

 into the world's diet — protein. Examples 

 of protein are the whites of eggs, the 



