Photograph by Frank H. Bothell 

 A FARMER LASSIE FEEDING HER COSSET 



There are many little Marys and their lambs on American farms, and the lambs become as 

 attached to their little mistresses as dogs do to their masters 



of commercial fertilizer, and the age of 

 preventive medicine as applied to live 

 stock, so it is probable that the prophets 

 who predict a hungry world in the not- 

 distant future are failing to reckon with 

 the possibilities of further extension and 

 improvement of agricultural conditions. 



Furthermore, they also entirely neglect 

 the fact that synthetic chemistry is delv- 

 ing deeper into the mysteries of nature's 

 laboratories in the roots and stalks of the 

 plant world, and is gradually coming to 

 the point where it can take the raw ma- 

 terials that the plant itself takes from the 

 soil, and make foods in factories perhaps 

 as well as nature makes them on the 

 farm. 



CONTINENTAL CHARACTERISTICS 



In any study of how the world is fed, 

 one discovers very soon that the various 



continents are characterized by widely 

 varied forms of diet. Australia, smallest 

 of continents, is the largest meat eater of 

 them all. Asia, the largest continent, is 

 the smallest meat eater among them. 

 Africa and South America lean toward 

 vegetarianism, while North America and 

 Europe are large consumers of meat and 

 other animal products. 



Although Asia has fifty-three out of 

 every hundred of the world's inhabitants 

 living within its boundaries, it has, out- 

 side of India, comparatively few cattle, 

 only a negligible number of hogs, and not 

 a great many sheep. Fish, rice, and vege- 

 tables form the principal articles in the 

 Asiatic market basket. 



The average meal of the laboring class 

 of China consists mainly of rice, a little 

 cabbage boiled in a lot of water, and 



