The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-01-21
FUTURE roop SUPPLIES.

EOcD oCA A<AA~~s
 We often hear of writers and thinkers who look long way ahead worrying themselves over the problem of future supply of food for. the countless millions who may be expect ed to occupy the earth 8 long time from the present. It is admitted that at present there is no real scarcity of food if it could be apportioned among all the people of the earth. It is quite true that every year we have accounts of famines in some portion Of the world, where people are dying from lack of food. but the trouble is because the surplus in other countries cannot be gotten to them. If that could be done there would be no starvation.
 While this is admitted we still find some who stand on the mountain tops of imagination and see far ahead a time when the population will be vast ly increased. and when earth and air and water will not supply enough food to keep life in the billions of human beings who must eat or starve. That is borrowing trouble in two ways. In the first place it is useless for us to worry about what may happen centu- ries from now. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.' says the pro- verb, and we can find enough all around us and every hour to worry over, if we must worry. without vast ing sympathy on those who may not need it.
 For the fear that the food supply will not be equal to the demand Is not based on very solid foundation. even if the increase of population in the coming years is as great as some pre- dict, which Is not a certainty. Even if 1t is, these pesslmists who predict gradual starvation do not fully consider the conditions and possibilities of the earth. The area of land which has not yet been brought under cultivation is practically incalculable. In the United States. even, with all it's great agricult' uraI development there are yet many | millions of acres in forest. most of l which can be cultivated. In British America there are many other millions in the same condition. A great DOT tion of South America has never been cleared. and the vast continent of Ar | rica is as yet an almost unexplored re- l zion. There are thousands of square | miles of islands which have not been tiled and so 1t goes. Billions and bil- lions of acres of tillable lands are yet in a state of nature which will yet be brought into cultivation
 Nor is this all. for there are two other bars in the way of future starva- ton. Modern researches and experi- | ments prove that the productive capac- | ity of much of our farm lands can be vastly increased. It has been shown hv actual and intelligent experiments | that the old idea of making two blades of grass grow where only one grew before can be accomplished with almost every crop that is food for man and beast. The yields of roots and grains, fruits and vegetables have ir so many cases been doubled. and more than doubled. by intelligent and scien' tinc efforts that it Is difficult to fix limit to what may be done In this way
 And even this is not the whole, fol | there vet remains vast areas of hither' to unproductive land that can b. brought into cultivation by irrigation Tn the United States, on what has beer wrongly designated as deserts. arti
 hcial watering has been tried witl wonderful results. and the system il
 really in It's infancy. The experiment.
 tried have been so encouraging ant profitable that we may look on wha
 has been done as only a beginning Before many years have passed ther
 will be no American deserts, but thei former sites will be covered with grow
 ing crops.
 But our own country is not the onl, one where man will conquer Nature. large portion of Egypt is practically
 desert where nothing grows that 1
 useful to man or beast, but that condi ton is not fated to endure. A dam 1 now being built across the Nile at As souan, and one writer says that whel finished 1t promises to provide suste nance for a population three times a
 great as Rameses ruled over" If tha
 succeeds 1t will be but the beginning
 of other works on other rivers whicl
 will literally make the desert to bios
 som as the rose, and add enormousl
 to the food producing area of the eartt
 There are other desert areas whic
 have been looked on as hopeless. whic
 the hand of man has not interfere
 with, but which may yet be brough
 under his dominion. In short, thos
 who predict starvation for humanit
 are wasting their time and sympathy OLD BANK BILLS.