Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1909-07-02
WILL RACE sTARVE?
Prediction That Increasing Popu-
lation Will Result in Starv-
alton in so Years

will not be due to failure of the
birth rate, but to starvation, that
1.-THE supply of phosphorus, so es-
sential for the soil, is rapidly dis
appearing and that agriculture
must be made permanent, if fu-
ture generations are to eat, were
some Of the statements Of Dean
Eugene Davenport, of the depart
ment of agriculture of the Illinois
state university in a recent adj
dress.
Dean Davenport said in part
We have seen the last of the
cheap white bread.
Within the life time of the
children born today, scarcity Of
labor will be matter of history,
and abundance of cheap food will
be tale that is told by the
gran 'ther in the chimney corner
doing in his dotage. We are edu-
eating in our schools today a gen
Grafton of children to live a life
that we ourselves have never seen
and that history does not record.
Calculate what their conditions of
life are likely to be and mend our
methods accordingly.
eve were 300 years in getting
a population of 100000 Of people.
so slowly do number pile up when
the base is small, whatever the
ratio, but we have increased 90
100000 IN the last 100 years. |
well remember when our popula-
ton was but 100000 and | am
no relative of Methusaleh, either.
Many of you remember when it
was but 100000, but now it has
reached approximately 100000
1000. With such a base and with
modern conditions of life this
country can and will produce men
at a rate the world has never seen.
Birth Rate Tremendous
We can now produce in this
country as much increased popu-
lation in the next twenty-five
years as we produced in the whole
400 years since its discovery by
white men and we can produce
twice as many more in the next
%. In 80 years from now we shall
have the population of China in
this country unless something goes
wrong, and it is the business of
agriculture to learn how to feed
them, and feed them well. When
it has learned this, it will have
learned many a lesson the colleges
do not know how to teach.
Permanent Agriculture Essential
There is to be in the near flu
ture, a struggle for land and the
food it will produce such as the
world has never yet beheld. He
who knows where and how to look
can see it coming The African
activity among western European
nations is a part of it. 1t is al
ways cheaper to move when over
population and failing fertility
threaten a shortage of food-pro-
viding there is any place to move
into; that is, providing we can
dispossess the other party and his
land is worth the contest
8 However, that may be as an
abstract proposition; for us there
is no moving. For us there is no
more new worlds For us there
is little more out west. Our
fortune and our future, whatever
they may be, are staked down on
the American continent Literal
lily here we rest, and whether we
like it or not we must devise and
establish permanent agriculture
or go down in the attempt.
Our defendants will certainly
be as cultured as we; they ought
to be more so. Their needs surely
will not be fewer or of a more
modest character. Their numbers
will be vastly greater and unless
we, not they, can succeed in find
ing a permanent agriculture the
race will degenerate and end
where it commenced, in poverty
and barbarism. >
Moving Off the Farm
Dean Davenport deplored the
custom of moving off the farm
into the city in order to obtain the
Iluxuries of life. In doing this, J"
he said, "the farmer has abandon
ed his business. He has broken
up his childrens home. He has
exposed his little ones to the I'M
bridlcd dangers Of the small town.
He has set before them the ex-
ample of idleness. He has turned
his back upon the farm that has
made his wealth and stripped the
land of its fertility to build in the
town the homes tO which the farm