Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1905-01-19
FUTURE FOOD OF AMERICA
Our Vast Resources Make Possible the
Highest Form of Civ
ilization.

NiislAS VI Inc ESOAuuuiC lHtCi pre-
tation of History" in the oimonthly an.
mails of the American Academy of Polit-
ical and Social Science, Prof. Simon N.
Patten, of the University of Pennsyl-
vania, says this of an American future
based on food supplies:
mot only has America a better food
supply than Europe, but the barriers to
commerce have been so far broken down
as to make the food supply of the whole
world available at u great centers.
"a new civilization is now possible
to which those of the past can offer few
a%nalogies. Individual struggle has
practically ceased. A sufficiency OF
food comes to the unskilled laborer,
and the increase of population even
when augmented by a million immi-
grants a year does not increase the pres
sure. We have higher standards to-day
with SO, 0 900 people than we had two
generations ago with 49, 900, 900 people,
and we could support 300, 0O0, 900 with as
great ease and with as little individual
struggle.
'The great central plain of North
America is a vast storehouse of food. We
have the wheat that Europe has, but we
have it more abundantly. We have
more extensive grazing regions, and
with orn for fodder have superior ia
cilities for raising cattle. Pork never
took its proper place in the diet of the
world until the great cornfields Of the
west came into existence.
ITO think of the changes in diet that
the c%heapening of sugar has made is to
realize in a measure what an increase
of population will follow the full utiliza-
ton of available root crops. We have
combined the on which the
civilization Of north Europe depends and
those which made the ancient civiliza-
lions of the south. The immigrants
from south Europe find here a possible
diet like that of their home countries,
and in it's use they evoke qualities in
II soil that lay dormant as long as the
northern races were fed from it.
"In addition to these home possibili-
ties the and accessibility OF
the semi-tropical regions Of the West
Indies and Central America made many
new foodstuffs available and in quanti-
ties practically unlimited. Measured in
food, these regions car support as great
q population as can the United States.
and cost is less than that of the home
supply. We need only a fruit and a veg
etable loving population to utilize these
new food materials, and it is at hald in
the immigrants from southern and cen
trail Europe.
"This food supply could not be made
available nor could the absorption and
assimilation of southern races take place
without the recent cheapening OF the
cost of transportation.
"Coincident with this Improvement
in food and transportation have come
social betterments that have length
ened life and made people more healthy.
Great scourges like the medieval
plaques are no longer possible, and fevers
are so we'll under control that they have
ceased to be grievous Affections.
ITO attain all these advantages a
rapid increase of capital is necessary,
aud fortunately the growth of the saw
ing instinct has kept pace with other
improvements. A slight change in the
rate of interest calls forth capital
enough for our great enterprises.
Food, health, capital and mobility Of
men and goods are the four essentials to
progress. All of them are now abundant
Iy supplied and capable of indefinite
increase. Must not this be the basis OF
q great social transformation, changing
our institutions, habits and traditions
until they establish a social adjust
ment as complete as the present eco
nomic situation permits? If there was
a break in traditions, institutions and
ideas when civilization moved from
southern to northern Europe, a still
greater crisis is before us when Amer
lean civilization matches American pos.
sibilities."