Þessi texti var þýddur 27.1.14 16:22

On the wide prairies of America each hundred men, with the aid of
powerful machinery, can produce in a few months enough wheat to maintain
ten thousand people for a whole year. And where man wishes to double his
produce, to treble it, to multiply it a hundred-fold, he makes the soil,
gives to each plant the requisite care, and thus obtains enormous
returns. While the hunter of old had to scour fifty or sixty square
miles to find food for his family, the civilized man supports his
household, with far less pains, and far more certainty, on a thousandth
part of that space. Climate is no longer an obstacle. When the sun
fails, man replaces it by artificial heat; and we see the coming of a
time when artificial light also will be used to stimulate vegetation.
Meanwhile, by the use of glass and hot water pipes, man renders a given
space ten and fifty times more productive than it was in its natural
state.