Abstract
RECENT considerations of the problem of the capacity of the world to continue to feed its growing population appear to have begun with the late Sir William Crookes's address as president of the British Association when he discussed the ultimate curtailment of the wheat supply through exhaustion of the soil nitrogen. Crookes's views attracted little more than academic attention at the time (1898) because the great tide of wheat that was setting in from the newer countries still in the process of exploita tion was barely slackening; moreover, Crookes had neglected a factor then imperfectly appreciated—the fact that land under any of the conservative systems of farming adopted in the old settled countries does not become exhausted. Generally speaking, a soil will remain itself indefinitely at a certain level of production. Latterly in Europe that level has been raised by the introduction of extraneous fertilisers. In his review Crookes predicted the development of the synthetic processes of bringing nitrogen into com bination which are to-day rendering that prime element of fertility so abundant and so cheap.
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HALL, D. The Relation between Cultivated Area and Population1. Nature 118, 304–307 (1926). https://doi.org/10.1038/118304a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/118304a0