The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-03-23
FOOD WILL COST MORE
Era of Cheap Meat is Gone
 Forever.
BoUNDLEss RESOURCES GOING
Only Relief is Cheaper Food or Less of It-Every Day Science Discovers How to Lengthen Life, and This All Means Higher Prices.

of It-EVery Day science D1ScOVefS
 How to Lengthen Life, and This
 All Means Higher Prices.
 Bread and meat will never be lower
 than they are now: they will soon go
 higher. These are the conclusions or
 Dr. Eugene Davenport, Dean of the
 College of Agriculture of the Univer-
 sity of Illinois. In his article in the
 April issue of Good Housekeepdng
 Magazine he says:
 we have skinned the cream of the fertility off most of our lands. Great stretches of country have already been abandoned and all lands that have been far1ned for a half century are de- cIining in production except the few that have been fertflized at the ex- pense of others near by. No lands are good enough to endure quarter of a century of exclusive grain farm ing without marked decrease of yield One field at the University of Illinois has raised corn SucceSSiVely thirty years, and it has declined in yield on the average bushel a year though it was superior land at the beginning g nd was too rich ever to wear out.
 ftSomeone has said that the time has come when to fire a cannon represents the cost of a college education and to huild a battleship costs a university, d,, These considerations will one day amend public. policies, but it will only increase the derr and for bread, ana now that we are checking the agencies of human destruction, we must under stand what it will mean in population Every life saved and every infant pre- served adds not only to numbers but to the average length of human l1fe and, correspondingly, to the demand for food.
 q cannot see, therefore. any lasting relief from the prospect of permaneint ods of production will defer the day and soften it's coming. and reduced wages, consequent upon dense pop lot x3rf11 in Q for a lessened amount and a cheaper kind of food for the masses, and this, more than all other causes. will keep prices ir check. But back of it all lies the fact Of the pressure of popu- lation and the 1essening fertility that no race yet has ever stood against nor permanent methods of agriculture such as have not yet been generally established. paradise in this matter The day of cheap meat is over and that of cheap l white bread is passing, and unless we can speedily establish a more perma- nent agriculture than has ever yet been established, then will prices not | only go higher, but the most of men 1 will be forced to subsfst on the cheap l sons, as well as for considerations of is eminentIy undesirable. | The era of high-Driced food is fairly 1 upon us in spite of our fboundless CD | natural resources and our .inexhaust- Ible fertility and the most that we can do is to retard the speed and soften the hardship of it's coming by timely and scientific attention to our T grfculture.
 Much is expected through reclama- ton of arid regions by irrigation. but the areas are relatively small. prob lbly all told not exceeding that of and the great staple grains, grasses and treats wiM always be eaised on non-irri gated lands. These are largely occupied already. The argest relief comes in breaking up the ,ange for grain farming. but this means the last of cheap meat, and it means neither a permanent food sup ply nor a final reduction in price. The food supply is attainable ,n1y by perna nanent systems of agricu1- ,ure that increase instead of decreas- ng fertility, and even these do not prevent population from overtaking prod Uction. In the end high prices or food are inevitable. and it looks IS if we had fairly started on the road, md if that is so. the only financial re- ief is chea ger food or less of it.
 T am in all things an optimist. not pessinist but we cannot afford to dose our eyes to very evident facts. We have lived have no other peop e n a superabundance of food. That irne is over. I expect fluctua tions in prices: but. for the reasons outlined I