The Washington herald., 1914-07-20
The Nations Food Problem.

In all the discussion following the latest advance
in the price Of beef hope is held out that any
thing like permanent lower level will ever be re-
stored The trend isiconstanty upward and the only
explanation is that offered with unanmity by cattle
raisers and packers that the production of beef
cattle is not nearly keeping pace with the increase
in population, and that the cost of maturing them
has practically doubled in twenty years. 1t is no
longer exaggeration to say that beef has become a
luxury that it is rapidly getting beyond the reach
of the average wage The turning of the de-
mand from beef to other meats and other foods must
naturally result in increasing prices generally SO that
steadily the problem of the high cost of living be-
comes more difficult of solution
Most of the remedies suggested can at best be
regarded temporary expedients, promising
substantial relief Stopping the slaughter of calves
would, of course, increase the meat supply but
if it should be deemed wise to do this by law. the
result would fall far short of providing plentiful
beef supply reasonable prices Difficult as it is
believe that the United States with its incom-
parable natural resources and its population of only
about thirty the square mile drifting the point
where it will be unable to feed itself, it is concu
sion that will soon have to be accepted. Not only
exports of food products rapidly decreasing but
We steadily increasing our imports of things
eat, including beef from Argentina and mutton from
Australia, expensive operation that has little effect
on prices.
The real cause of the inadequacy of our food
supply and resultant high prices is we'll recognized,
and recently put in concise form by that far
seeing business statesman James J. Hill in address
delivered in this city Said he:
Our farm processes are still almost incredibly
antique and unproductive. According to a careful
study by Dr. Carl Heferich of Berlin, the yield per
acre of wheat in Germany in 1912 was more than
double that in the United States; that of nearly
90 per cent greater OF barley per cent of oats
nearly so per cent and of potatoes only little short
of 100 per cent Such returns from soil cultivated
long before Tacitus wrote, in climate inferior to
ours for grain production. tell the whole story of
American farm methods The best that hope
for, continuing the slow improvement in prog
ress, would be to keep production from tagging too
far behind increase of population. If double
acre product which could easily be DONE the chances
that, before our farmers be educated to the
point of doing II, population will double also.
at the rate OF about per cent year, and the most
sanguine person cannot under present methods, ex-
pect from farm production any such continuous
rate OF growth
1t is the same with all our agricultural methods,
which inevitably must be reformed if the country is
to be saved from starvation. 1t would surely seem
that. the farmers soon realize the largely in
creased profits that await the adoption OF intensive
intelligent scientific and systematic methods of food
production, live stock raising well grain culture
Undoubtedly the countrys agricultural departments
Federal and State, have accomplished much in recent
years, but most of their work is yet ahead of them
and conditions today, with rapidly increasing popu-
laon, suggest that the government may find it
sary to redoube its efforts to deal with the food
problem, the nations very greatest problem beside
which all the others insignificant.
Who would question the wisdom and economy of
an annual appropriation for agricultural improvement
of amount equal to that contained in the rivers
and harbors bill