The Surplus Farm Lands

Abstract

strated surplus production which has characterized agriculture for the past eight years has in any way allayed the fears of the theorists. For practical purposes, we are producing more wheat, more corn, and more cotton than can be consumed. In fact, the agricultural surplus has become burden and has been the central theme of political discussion in all recent political campaigns. It is curious that discussion of food shortage should occur at time when it is obvious that the country is flooded with food beyond its ability to consume and beyond the effective demand of importing countries. It was exactly century ago when Malthus first presented his famous dictum that population is increasing faster than food. In sense, the first presentation of the theory, now known as the Malthusian theory, came during post-war period. Europe was still suffering from the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars. The high-geared production during war, when agriculture is stimulated and market is readily found for the farmers' products, seldom brings forth discussion of overpopulation and food shortage. It is after the war, when the surplus mounts and unemployment depresses purchasing power, that the fear begins to haunt men that there may be too many people in this world. It is then that immigration laws are placed on statute books and it is recalled that in the confused causes of war no insignificant part was played by the chatter of monarch who wanted a place in the sun. It does not now seem so idle and boastful. Surplus goods are somehow confused with surplus population, and in the midst of unparalleled agricultural production and consequent surplus there comes this curious fear of food famine, and there emanates from secluded studies of professors, as well as from halls of the legislatures, treatises and orations lauding the farmer and urging the extension of the agricultural-producing machinery.