Thorstein Veblen
Review author of: 'The Wheat Problem, Revised, with an answer to various 
Critics'. By SIR WILLIAM CROOKES, F. R. S. With chapters on the future 
wheat supply of the United States by C. WOOD DAVIS and JOHN HYDE. New York: 
G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1900. 12mo. Pp. xiii + 272.
The Journal of Political Economy, vol. 8, No. 2 (Mar., 1900), pp. 284-286.
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A secondary purpose of Sir William Crookes's essay on "The World's Supply 
of Wheat" apparently is to call attention to his experiments in the 
fixation of nitrogen. These experiments may well have a grave significance 
for the future food supply, or at any rate the question of the artificial 
fixation of nitrogen may come to be a vital question, although there are 
probably few economists who see the problem of artificial fixation as a 
sphynx's riddle impending in the immediate future.
The author's argument converges to the conclusion that a general scarcity 
of food is, at the most, no more than a generation ahead. In this he is 
ably seconded by Mr. Davis's hearty co-operation and has also the somewhat 
equivocal support of Mr. Hyde's discussion of the wheat problem. Of Mr. 
Davis it is of course expected that he should unreservedly throw what 
weight his word has on the side of Sir William's contention. But Mr. Hyde, 
as becomes a cautious statistician, is non-committal in any matter of 
forecast, except where he is on the safe ground of available acreage. Mr. 
Hyde speaks directly to the point which he has set before him, viz., the 
wheat supply; and he does not commit [285] himself to the implication that 
"the wheat supply" is or comes near being synonymous with "the food 
supply." He deals with the question as a statistical problem of acreage, 
and has very little to say on the more important question of yield; for 
future changes of yield, so far as concerns this country, cannot be 
discussed with any definite outcome on the basis of present statistics. He 
is, however, content to leave the question of probable future yields with a 
simple indication of what has been the course of average yields for twenty 
years back, neglecting to point out that the situation of the grain market 
during this period has been such as to discourage all efforts to increase 
the yields of any of the common grains, and so leaving the misleading 
suggestion that the course of future yields is to be directly inferred from 
the yields in the immediate past. But while Mr. Hyde's most telling 
contribution to the argument for a scarcity is this, probably unintended, 
misleading implication, Sir William faces the question of yields and 
disposes of it in one of the most extraordinary passages that has yet been 
met with in all the curious literature extant on the wheat question. In a 
reply to criticisms offered by Sir John Lawes and Sir Henry Gilbert he 
argues (pp. 104-107) that the low yields of America, we compared with those 
of England, are due to conditions of climate and soil, not to the American 
farmer's less close economy in the use of land. "American methods are quite 
as well adapted to the soils and climate as are those of England to the 
soils and climate of Great Britain." This passage the context compels us to 
take seriously. The consummate ignorance of the aims and methods of 
American farming reflected in this statement is assuredly surprising enough 
in a scientist who has so evidently taken pains to inform himself on other 
features of the subject. And it is at the same time unfortunate in that it 
may raise a presumption that other, more substantial portions of the 
argument proceed on equally fanciful and headlong generalizations. In the 
face of his incredible dealings with these economic data, it needs all the 
prestige of Sir William's great name to sustain our faith in what he has to 
say when he is speaking within the lines of his own science.
Correlated with this assumption, that the yield per acre is necessarily 
stable, is an equally surprising assumption to the effect that the unit 
consumption of wheat must go on increasing and so hasten the approach of 
scarcity. Abundance during the past fifteen years has resulted in an 
increase of unit consumption, and this increase, it is argued, will go on 
in the face of a slackening supply so of to cause a [286] scarcity in the 
future. That is for my, because we have had abundance and consequent low 
prices of wheat, resulting in a high unit consumption and a low yield, 
therefore we must expect that in the future we shall have a high unit 
consumption and a low yield, resulting in scarcity and high prices. Certain 
passages in the volume might even be construed to say that shall presently 
suffer privation became of the excessive prosperity and efficiency of our 
industry in the future.
So far as the essay is an argument for impending scarcity it proceeds on 
the assumption that "other circumstances remain the same," particularly the 
adverse circumstances. But there appears to be no reason for believing that 
other things will remain the same in the immediate future, any more 
consistently than they have done in the past. It may therefore fairly be 
doubted whether Sir William's draft on the future's bank of misery will be 
honored, since it is drawn with this proviso.
T. V.