ifference to the farmer whether he gets twelve bushels of
wheat to the acre, or whether he gets twenty, for the cost of producing
the smaller amount is just as great as the cost of producing the larger,
and the extra bushels are all profit. It makes a difference whether a
garden furnishes all the fruit and vegetables needed by the family, or
whether it does not even pay for cultivation, and the food must be
bought at high prices. It makes even more difference to the dweller in
the city, who must buy all that he eats, whether food is abundant or
not. If food is abundant, prices are low, but when the yield is small
the demand is so great that prices become high.

Not only the men, but the women and children as well, are affected by
these food values, because it is from the extra money left over after
the actual cost of living is taken out that the clothing, the
house-furnishings, books, pictures, music, travel and all the pleasures
of life must come.

Great as are our harvests, we are not raising much more than enough for
our present needs. Each year we are using more of our food at home, and
have less to export to other countries. In a few years more the public
lands will all be taken, and there will be comparatively little more
land than we now cultivate to supply a population that will be many
times as great as at present.

Men who watch the great movements of the world tell us that the time is
coming before many years when there will not be food enough to supply
all our people, when we shall be buying food from other countries
instead of selling to them, when we shall have famine instead of plenty
unless we realize the danger and at once set about to make the most of
every acre of our land.

James J. Hill, the great railroad builder of the Northwest, and one of
the best informed men of the country on food production and the increase
of population, is doing a great work in pointing out these dangers to
the people on every possible occasion.

Watching the great food-producing region of the country, he has noted
that each year the yield per acre is growing less, and the population
steadily more. He tells us that when our first census was taken only
four per cent. of the people lived in cities, that fifty years ago
one-third of the people lived in cities, and two-thirds in the country,
that is, two-thirds of the people were furnishing food to the remainder.
Now conditions are almost exactly reversed. Only one-third r