Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1916-10-10
Americas Food Resources.

1t is a curious commentary on American agri-
culture that the potato crop this year is so short
that thousands of bushels must be imported for
home consumption
The United States is not crowded country
Its population per square mile does not exceed
thirty-one, and its arabic amounts to nine
hundred and thirtyve million acres only forty-ive
per cent OF which is under cultivation. Yet, with
this marvellous plenty of land and it does
not produce enough potatoes to supply its own
needs.
This is true, to greater or less degree of other
food staples, notably meats. In cattle, sheep and
hogs there an absolute as we'll as relative de-
from 1899 to 19O9-in cattle from fifty mil
lion head forty-one Million in sheep from sixty
two million to fifty-two Million in hogs from sixty
three million to ffty-eight million. The tendency
continued downward until the last year or So when
war demands gave a new impetus to animal hus-
bandry; but many years of vigorous development
win be required to bring the cOuntry's meat supply
up to anything like the demand.
There is the reassuring fact, however that our
natural resources are ample for our needs. Au-
thorities say that in the South Atlantic and Gulf
States alone there is land enough and climate sui
GENTLY favorable TO produce all the vegetables and
food animals required by many times the present
population In this group of States there are
twenty-five million acres ideally suited, far as
soil elements are concerned, to vegetables and
fruits and as yet only slim fraction of this vast
area has been utilized for truck farming or any
bther agricultural purpose.
Commenting on the wondrous opportunities
thus presented the Manufacturers Record has said:
What a harvest for the South and what
: material blessings for the whole population
I of the country latent in the twenty mill
lion or twenty-five million acres of trucking
; soils still awaiting the expansion of the in
! teIigent treatment that has already made a
/. few hundred thousand acres to smile with
( frequent and abundant truck crops! Realza-
ton of the promise. though, will call for
I much. Capital in the shape of money and
+ men will be required to equip the country
I with observation-disclosures truck farm in
I the South. Transportation facilities in the
: shape of quick trains from the growing
: tiers to the cities and towns of the North and
. West, of motor trucks from farms to railroad
: shipping points and of electric through
! out the whole region will be increased on
: lines that have already demonstrated their
Z effectiveness"
7 .Georgia's resources for truck farming are Pc
euliarIy rich. In Chatham county alone, accord
Ing to a survey of the national Department of
Agriculture, there are ninety thousand acres of
land excellenty suited to this branch of agricuI-
ture and there are equally inviting opportunities
in many other parts of the State. DeKalb county,
is one of the most important truck-producing
ties in all the South.
The latest official reports show that between
ninety and a hundred thousand acres of Georgia
soil are under cultivation truck farms. That
represents substantial progress compared with
conditions of ten or fifteen years ago. but the
States resources in this respect yet barely
touched With area as large that Of Eng
land and Wales combined and with only thirty
two per cent of its land under cultivation, Geor-
gia can become one of Americas great centers of
food production.
The problem of food supply in the United
States seems perplexing at times, especially when
food prices are high they are; but it is
quite a different problem from that of the crowd
ed countries of Europe 1t is that can be
solved and will be solved by the development Of
the almost unlimited resources with which nature
has blest