The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1914-05-22
NOT CROWDED
YET BUT We MUST
CHANGE WAYS
(Pocatello Chronicle. }

| NASN0NSAAO Co
According to recent figures issued
by the census department of the gov.
eminent, Idaho now has a popula-
ton estimated at 35o,407, or an aver
age OF four persons to a square mile,
which is some increase over the fg-
ures of 1910, which gave US about
5zo,OOO, and shows that we are still
growing. Washington is given at
l,4O5 sos, and Montana, 432,7l4. The
continental United States is given a
population of 100000, all of which
shows that we are still growing. AS
population increases it has a tendency
70 concentrate in certain location.
Agricultural pursuits are conductive
to large populations and the popula-
ton increases in density in proper
ton to the fertility of the soil.
Germany, which sets the pace for
the world in commercial expansion
abroad and industrial activity at
home, has 800 inhabitants to the so,
mile. lhere are now about thirty
TWO inhabitants per square mile in
the United States. 1t could support
IoO inhabitants to the square mile as
easily as any other country in the
world. Some of our states already
have more than twice that number.
But no such population as this, none
such as we must inevitable expect in
the United States by the middle of
the present century, can be maintained
unless we improve and keep on i'm
proving our agricultural methods; un-
less we apply to the tilling of the soil
that system of high scientific develop
ment, of intensive cultivation, of very
rigid handling that has become the
rule in all other industries. We can
not support our coming population
upon the crop yield per acre that now
satisfies us.
The problem can be stated simply
IN the three terms that involves-pop-
ulation, occupation and food supply.
These cover the whole of it.
The earth's resources are the farm
hrSt then the forests and then the
mines. We are dependent upon the
farms, and the farms must support
the cities, or the cities will not be
supported. There is nothing else to
which the cities can look to for sus-
tenance.
Our population has increased at a
ratio that if continued will give us
more than 200,OOOO00 by 1850. 1t
may be 1858 or it may be l947, but in
or about the middle OF this century
we shall have 200,0O0,0OO people to
feed. We are raising today in the
United States about 650,0O0,000 bu-
shells of wheat per annum. Six and a
half to seven bushels per capita for
bread and seed is a moderate and con-
sentative figure. With 20O,OOO,OOO
people consuming six and a half bu-
shells each, it will require ,3OO,OOO,OOO |
bushels to feed them. This is twice
the quantity we are raising today,
and if we have no new land to turn
to where will the bread come from to
feed these 200O00,000 people7
1t is said that everything will take |
care of itself; it always has and it
always will. But a good providence
takes best care OF those who take care
of themselves.
There is great need of better cult |
walton to raise the per capita of six
and one-half bushels for 20OOOO,00O |
people. Let us agree that by better
the yield can be raised so
as to obtain total crop of 100000
600 bushels. That would be nearly a
fifty percent increase. To get a fifty
per cent increase in England required
more than thirty years. Now, with
o00,000000 bushels furnished at home
and 400000,000 bushels to buy, what
would we have to pay for it? Where
would we get it1 Where in the world
is there surplus of 400,000,00C
bushels? In the past we furnished
the great surplus. Canada is now
rapidly coming along by the side of
us and so is Argentina. But by the
way, people are moving to the Cana
dian Northwest it will not be long be-
fore they need 100000 bushels for
their own use. They may be able to
sell l50O00,O00 or even 20QOOO,000
bushels, and they are close to our
markets, but all they could give would
not furnish us the 400,000,000 we must
have.
Only one half of the land in private
ownership is titled. That tillage does
not produce one-half of what the land
might be made to yield, without losing
an atom of its fertility.
Yet the waste of our treasure has
proceeded so far that the actual value
of the soil for productive purposes
has already deteiorated more than it
should have done in FIVE centuries of
use.
There is. except in isolated and in
dividual cases, little approaching in
tensive agriculture in the United
States. There is only the annual
skimming of the rich cream, the ex-
haustion of virgin fertility, the ex-
traction from the earth by the most
rapid processes of its productive
powers; the deterioration of life sole
maintenance.