Fiddlesticks! Had the Pampas of South America, the pasture lands of Australia, and the wheat fields of Canada remained virgin there would have been ere now thousands of acres in Great Britain under glass and harnessing the solar spectrum and the electric currents of air to manufacture food for the people. Feminists, instead of rending other people’s garments to bewail the departure of their mankind, would be conjuring out of four-inch potsherds fruit rich and rare for the household. If among the social economists of the present generation there is a disposition to revert to the Malthusian creed; in this spacious country, and as far as the vegetative population is concerned, there is no need to raise the voice of alarm. National progress and thrift will be soonest achieved by the increase of the national population; and, without closing the doors to useful alien immigration, the welfare of the community should be dependent rather upon the increase of the family than upon the overflow population from other lands. … Under our present system of agriculture the domestic requirements of the country are sacrificed to foreign demand. We measure our progress by our export trade of raw produce. When we speak of agriculture what we really mean is the production of maize, wheat and linseed for shipment abroad. It is to this end that so much has been heard of warrants, elevators and other devices to enable the farmer to dispose of his crop. They are in some degree devices for his own security; but they are in a much greater degree devices to secure for the export of cereals a more regular flow from the sources that supply it. The time is no doubt distant when this country shall have a population sufficient to consume the raw produce of its soil; but by turning our eyes constantly to its export trade as the sole source of its production we have not only limited the lines of our agricultural production, but we have neglected complementary lines that would have increased that export trade by maintaining soil values. The cereal that gives the best return from a large area of our Pampa soil and climate is barley. Being shallow-rooted our indifferent tilth suffices for its seed bed; and being short lived it can be sown late and harvested early, reducing the risks from frost and drought. The “chacarero” who produces 8 fanegas of wheat could produce on averages from the same soil and with no better husbandry 18 fanegas of barley per hectare. In food equivalents that is equal to 280 kilogrammes of pork.