HOW GERMANY FEEDS HERSELF

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3198, 24 September 1917, Page 5

HOW GERMANY FEEDS HERSELF

GETTING THE LAST OUNCE ODT OF : EVERYTHING \ | INTERESTING COMPAKISQNS Eugene Grubb, an. authority on' potatoes and food values, has been sent to Europe several times by the Government of tie tfnitetT States to study food-produc-tion. He therefore speaks with a special Knowledge of his subject when he declares that there is no hope of starving Germany into submission. His opinions are tiros expressed by a write? in tho Los Angeles "Times":— As between England and Germany, irrespective of land aTea, Germany is muoli better, capable of feeding herself. , The average 10fl-acre farm in England produces five tons of meat a year; the average German farm of the same size produces five and a half tons. English farm produces seventeen tons of milk; the German ?arm twenty-eight tons. Of cereals, the English farm eighteen tons; the German farm, thirty-five tons. Potatoes, English farm, eleven tons; Gorman farm, fifty-five tons. Sugar, England, none; Germany, two and threefourths tons. '

England can produce about one-half her food supply; Germ aft y regularly produces 85 por cent, of her food. Under the spur of the most dire necessity that ever confronted tho British Empire, an effort is being made to increase this per-' centage. " In the opinion of Mr. Grubb, however, it will not be possible to very greatly raise-the quantity of f<Sod production. Although the soil of England is better than that of Germany, the English agriculturists labour under very severe disadvantages. - The average growing season in England sees but one hour and forty minutes of sunshine during the day. As the result of this condition, farming in England is 'a.-never-ending, battle against fungi. Most of the wheat has to be hoed by hand. In order to eliminate Ejoil-disease it is necessary to keep 65 per cent of the land in grass. All laud leases in England stipulate that a certain percentage of the land shall be kept in grass. These facta explain why so vast a portion of English land seems to the American visitors to be lying idle when it should be raising crops. Mr. Grubb says if the slipshod methods of the American farmer,were practised in England thfey wouldn't raise a big enough crop to get their seed back. At the same time, compared with the German farmer, the Englishman is wasteful and improvident. .The English, farmer raises sheep and cows; the German raises pigs. The German has discovered by inli-icate. scientific investigations that a bushel of corn will produce five pounds of flesh on a bullock. The same bushel jrill produce ten pounds of pig-meat. Iu the slaughtering the waste jn a bullock is 45 per cent. A pig has very small bones and his fat is all utilised in the form of bacon " and other meat products. The bullock has very large bones and his fat is mostly wasted. Therefore the German. raises and eatS pork. Agriculture in England, as in, Amer* ica, is rather a. hit-or-miss affair. In , Germany farming has been reduced to an intensive, experimental science. Mr. Grubb -visited a great German farm where records were kept like the fevercharts of a hospital. They had even figured out the exact loss of food values detracted from a cow by the exertion caußed by her walking fifty feet to water. IVom the potatoes the German's . extracted gluoose, spirits to run an mto : mobile, potato-flour, and other by-pro-ducts. After the by-products were extracted, tho lesidue, containing 15 p«r cent, more nutrition than chopped corn, was fed to the cattle. After the etfuch had been extracted, the water-soaked pulp was piped three miles to fertilise ground then in use for the intensivo cultivation of form products. As the result of these scientific methods Germany has agricultural resources-that the world at large does not dream of.