The Wheat Problem: Based on Remarks Made in the Presidential Address to the British Association at Bristol in 1898, Revised, with an Answer to Various CriticsJ. Murray, 1899 - 207 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
acre yields acreage additions agricultural American amount Argentina arid region Assiniboia Atkinson Austro-Hungary average yield barley bread eaters bread-eating populations bread-making grains buckwheat bushels an acre bushels of wheat bushels per annum Caucasian race census cent cereals climate consumption of wheat cotton cultivation Dakota decrease deficit demand districts entire Europe exports fact famine farmers fertile fixed nitrogen food supply food-bearing areas greater growing grown harvest imports Indian Territory irrigation Kansas less maize Manitoba Mark Lane Missouri Valley nitrate of soda North Africa oats Oklahoma portion potatoes prairie present production of wheat proportion railways reduced requirements ripen Russia scarcity seed Siberia soil South square miles staples statement TABLE temperature Texas thirty tion total farm area U.S. Geological Survey unimproved land unit consumption United Kingdom wheat area wheat crop wheat supply wheat-bearing wheat-growing world crops world's wheat yield per acre yields of wheat
Popular passages
Page 2 - Nevertheless, you will have observed that before we had travelled very far upon our road, there appeared, on the right hand and on the left, fields laden with a harvest of golden grain, immediately convertible into those things which the most sordidly practical of men will admit to have value, — namely, money and life.
Page 56 - Practically there remains no uncultivated prairie land in the United States suitable for wheat-growing. The virgin land has been rapidly absorbed, until at present there is no land left for wheat without reducing the area for maize, hay, and other necessary crops.
Page 46 - The fixation of nitrogen is a question of the not far distant future. Unless we can class it among certainties to come the great Caucasian race will cease to be foremost in the world, and will be squeezed out of existence by races to whom wheaten bread is not the staff of life.
Page 33 - Should all the wheat-growing countries add to their [producing] area to the utmost capacity, on the most careful calculation the yield would give us only an addition of some 100,000,000 acres, supplying, at the average world yield of 12.7 bushels to the acre, 1,270,000,000 bushels, just enough to supply the increase of population among bread eaters till the year 1931.
Page 49 - The future can take care of itself. The artificial production of nitrate is clearly within view, and by its aid the land devoted to wheat can be brought up to the 30 bushels per acre standard.
Page 43 - ... enough to think this debatable material will ever be worth working. If we assume a liberal estimate for nitrate obtained from the lower grade deposit, and say that it will equal in quantity that from the richer quality, the supply may last, possibly, fifty years, at the rate of...
Page 188 - ... economy. To discuss the extent to which under conceivable conditions the United States may, notwithstanding this somewhat dubious outlook, still continue to contribute to the food supply of other nations, would be little more than speculation. It is sufficient for the writer's present purpose to have called attention to the enormous prospective increase in the requirements of our own population and to some of the changes in the agricultural situation which such increase will involve.
Page 39 - ... of nitrogen locked up in the soils of the world become exhausted. Let us remember that the plant creates nothing ; there is nothing in bread which is not absorbed from the soil, and unless the abstracted nitrogen is returned to the soil, its fertility must ultimately be exhausted.
Page 14 - That scarcity and high prices have not prevailed in recent years is due to the fact that since 1889 we have had seven world crops of wheat and six of rye abundantly in excess of the average. These generous crops increased accumulations to such an extent as to obscure the fact that the harvests of 1895 and 189G were each much below current requirements.
Page 184 - ... 66,000,000 acres ; for oats, 23,700,000 acres ; for the minor cereals, 10,000,000 acres, and for hay, 40,500,000 acres, a total of 153,700,000 acres, without making any provision for the proportionately increased consumption of vegetables, fruits, and other products. Instead, therefore, of the probably largely increased acreage bringing down prices, or proving unprofitable to the farmers, there will be a deficiency of at least 50,000,000 acres.