, to be drawn upon.
Anyhow, the South American beds cannot long supply the world's need of
nitrates and we shall some time be starving unless creative chemistry
comes to the rescue. In 1898 Sir William Crookes--the discoverer of the
"Crookes tubes," the radiometer and radiant matter--startled the British
Association for the Advancement of Science by declaring that the world
was nearing the limit of wheat production and that by 1931 the
bread-eaters, the Caucasians, would have to turn to other grains or
restrict their population while the rice and millet eaters of Asia would
continue to increase. Sir William was laughed at then as a
sensationalist. He was, but his sensations were apt to prove true and it
is already evident that he was too near right for comfort. Before we
were half way to the date he set we had two wheatless days a week,
though that was because we persisted in shooting nitrates into the air.
The area producing wheat was by decades:[1]
THE WHEAT FIELDS OF THE WORLD
Acres
1881-90 192,000,000
1890-1900 211,000,000
1900-10 242,000,000
Probable limit 300,000,000
If 300,000,000 acres can be brought under cultivation for wheat and the
average yield raised to twenty bushels to the acre, that will give
enough to feed a billion people if they eat six bushels a year as do the
English.
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