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Show DRY LAND SCIENCE How Is Ever Increasing Population Popula-tion of Country to Be Fed? Dutch Botanist Says Scientific Methods Will Create Crops and Systematic Intelligent Work Will Produce Pro-duce Varieties. History shows the population of the United States to have doubled every 25 years. If history repeats itself, America will have In 1940 (31 years hence), a population of 200,000,000 people, peo-ple, llow are they to be fed? The problem stares one in the face as it has no other generation. The readily read-ily accessible humid productive lands, open to the past generations, are gone. There is no longer an unoccupied "west" to go to, paid J. H. Shepperd of the North Dakota Agricultural college, col-lege, in an address before a dry farm congress. The Philippine islands, Honolulu, Cuba and .Mexico are available, avail-able, but they are not attractive to most Americans, either on account of forms of government, climate or the race of people occupying them. This condition will face men long before their days of active work are over, and the work in this dry land experiment line is as well calculated to meet that emergency as any that is being prosecuted prose-cuted at the present time. There is a vast stretch of territory which the Dry Land Experiment, association is covering that will be added to the productive lands of the country there is a stretch of land beyond the one we are now considering which will support families by making the farm unit larger and there is a belt of country coun-try east of us that will produce much more by following the better cultivation cultiva-tion and moisture conservation plans which the members of this organization organiza-tion are teaching. Your problems are as I see them chiefly the economic use of moisture, Ihe addition of humus, and the prevention preven-tion of drifting by winds. Your loss of fertility is meager compared with that in humid districts as it is not lost by leaching. You have the advantage of a good curing season and should be able to turn out products of excellent color and quality. The forecast which Mr. De Vries, the Dutch botanist, made to his people peo-ple of what this systematic American movement to develop the dry lands of this western country was going to produce pro-duce in the way of material results, should encourage you. He laid the map of Germany on this western country coun-try to show how large a territory It is. He put the plat of Holland down on the north end of California and turned it end over end down that state to show how large the territory Is compared with their own. He then gave his people a strong lecture of precaution against carelessness in selecting, se-lecting, growing, handling and packing pack-ing their fruits and vegetables, telling them that the Americans are attacking attack-ing the problem in such a systematic and scientific way, that It Is only a question of a few years until their European home markets will be usurped by American citizens with American products. "Do not mind the plats of the Great American Desert In your geographies" he writes, "these people are making plants to suit their requirements and that territory must all be figured in as soon as sufficient labor is available to properly work that land. Scientific methods will create the crops which will grow and systematic intelligent work will produce the varieties to plant them." He laid stress with them on the fact that the American effort is scientific, systematic and fostered by government aid and direction. "The X'nited States," he said, "has fruit men in Europe today studying their market requirements," and he predicts pre-dicts that the time will soon he at hand when the Dutch fruit grower will meet strong competition from across the sea. |