Evening star., 1925-04-28

It is no wonder that the Pilgrims
and Puritans, who came to North
America three centuries ago, nearly
starved. In those old days the coun-
| try produced only corn. beans and
squashes, together with a few berries
Strawberries. elderberries. blackber
ries and wild grapes. The native
Americans were forced to be nomads,
dependent upon the chase, and 1t took
hundreds of acres TO support a man.
Ever since that first starvation Win
ter we of North America have been
| industriously endeavoring to make
two crops to grow where none grew
| before. North America is doing bet
ter now than 1t did in the days of
| Miles Standish, and there is now a
diversified market, supplying us with
| fruits and vegetables unknown to our
Mayfiower ancestors. There is that
rare vegetable - the potato-Which'
when one succeeds in acquiring the
taste Of it, with or without salt, is
| found to be quite appetiZing. but it
was first imported from Peru, for
many Years, before North Americans
learned that it would grow north of
| the Equator.
Dr. Nathaniel l.. Britton, director
| in-chief of the New York Botanical
Garden, has recently returned from
an exploration of Porto Rico, where
| he has spent months in seeking new
fruits and trees for importation, but
he returns without having found the
| rare Eupatorium" for which he made
special search. Just what is a rare
| Eupatorium" is not explained, but If
| 1t is something new to eat, let 1t be
found, for it might even outrank the
potato. It was thus that we procured
apples, peaches, pears, wheat, cotton,
alfalfa, soy beans, Japanese rices and
Sudan grass. Not all came from Peru,
but one of the most progressive scien-
lists of our Department OF Agricul-
ture is authority for the statement
that the Peruvians under the reign Of
the Incas, prior to the 'civiltzation'
which Pizarro brought them, were bet
| ter farmers than are the experts or
the United States. At least they pro-
duced greater crops than do American
farmers today. If we would thrive
agriculturally, he says, let us learn
the secret of the Inca farmers, even
| though we abolish the Department Of
Agriculture as "wasteful and ridicu-
| lous excess
OF course, it is understood that the
Peruvian aborigines knew nothing OF
| scientific farming, ana nao no Ihou
ern farm implements, nor even draIt
animals, but their success In proouc-
ing greater crops per acre than nave
| ever been produced by modern
| methods is all the more significant
| because it demonstrates the possib1li-
ties of persistent laborious cultivation
and natural selection of varieties and
of individual plants. So the prophet
Of evil who predicts the future of
overpopulation of the world and re-
sultant starvation, has no basis Tor
his pessimism. since when men De-
| come cheap, more human labor upon
the soil, as given in Peru and for
! thousands of years in densely peo-
pied Netherlands, China and India,
will produce proportionate harvest.
| The entire population of the world
could be fed by a quarter of the acre
age of the United States, provided we
| had Inca farmers in the fields. But
civilization would be hungry today
IL it were restricted to the products of
the soil which were not imported
and introduced by the scouts of Scien-
tif.c agriculture, and we crave mostly
the things which our acquired
/ tastes" have enabled us to tolerate.
| 4 X x X
That idea opens vast field of ex-
pansion in food products. Chemists
demonstrate that when a vessel is