FORTY YEARS HENCE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1169, 3 July 1911, Page 8

FORTY YEARS HENCE.

THE WHEAT NEEDED FOR 1350. Official statisticians in America lack nothing of boldness (says an oversea exchange). One of the boldest of their en-deavours,-However,, is an attempt, which was_ mado recently by the United States Agricultural Department, to estimate the iwlidat consumption and supplies' for- the .year. 1950. At present the average annual consumption is put. at 3,500,000,000 ■bushels. Forty years 'hanco the population '.being,. ?ay, between 50' and 60 per cent, larger than #ov.-,' will recmirc 2,000, 000,000 "additional bushels. To'meet this the . chief producing countries—the United States, Canada, Russia, and Argentina—are reckoned capable of supplying 2,200,000,000. additional bushels, thus leaving a'moderate surplus over requireme~.*,i. This is'a more cheerful forecast thfy others tltat have been given by individual exports. -The latter may very truly answer that estimates of ponulation and agricultural progress forty years in advance must include much guess-ivorlc. But tho American official experts claim to have as'good a right to guess optimistically as have others to guess otherwise, At any., rate, they say, "we of today shall not ho the less industrious for believing that our grandchildren, will lave bread enough to go round."