142 The World’s Production and Consumption of Food. 
culture. It is assumed4hat the bread-eating population of the world 
will, to say the least, continue to increase about as fast in the 
current decade, and in the first decade of the twentieth century, as 
it did from 1880 to 1890, and in this event, this portion of the 
world’s population will have reached 506,000,000 by the end of the 
current century, and 556,000,000 by the year 1910. Such being 
the case, it is estimated that no less than 136,000,000 acres of new 
crop-bearing land, not of low fertility, must be added to what the 
world already possesses, to provide food for extra mouths that must 
somehow be filled. This addition is much greater than that which 
Avas accomplished in the tAventy years between 1869 and 1890, and 
the United States can provide only a rapidly diminishing portion 
of the land that will be required. The Avorld, therefore, will have 
to look elseAvhere for the food Avhich hitherto the Americans haA^e 
been able to spare, for Mr. Davis believes that, before the close 
of this century, the United States Avill be a food-importing rather 
than a food-exporting country. He believes, in fact, that by the 
year 1895 the turn of the tide will have set in. 
The land still available in the States may possibly amount to 
nearly as much as the area which has been brought under cultivation 
in the last two decades, but this is an extremely liberal estimate ; 
and, in any case, it consists chiefly of land ofj an inferior quality 
which has hitherto been passed over by settlers. It is believed that 
the increased production of food which will or may result from 
improved cultivation Avill do no more than make up for the lessening 
yield of remote districts, and that it Avill come too slowly to be of 
much use in relieving necessities which, if population continues to 
increase at the rate of the last twenty years, will soon become 
pressing. It must, hoAvever, be remembered that marriages decrease 
in number Avhenever food becomes scarce, and that an economical 
standard of living is by most people at once adopted. The following 
are the conclusions of Mr. Davis in respect of population in the 
United States : — 
“ At the close of the century population will probably have in- 
creased to 77,000,000, and, consumption continuing at the same 
rate per capita as now, Ave shall need the product of 243,000,000 
acres ; and with but 226,000,000 in cultivation, the necessity for 
the importation of food will long have been imperative. 
" Ten years later it is estimated that population will have in- 
creased to 90,000,000, the area in cultivation to 234,000,000 acres, 
and the requirements to 284,000,000 — the deficit reaching 50,000,000 
acres, or 18 per cent., and necessitating the importation of nearly 
one-fifth the food and pi’ovender consumed, or a proportionate lower- 
ing of the standard of living.” 
American competition has pressed heavily on the farmers of the 
British Islands during a long period, and particularly since 1877 ; 
it is, in fact, the only competition which they have seriously dreaded, 
and they have come to regard it as chronic and perpetual. During 
the last twelve years the profits of farming in these Islands have 
