Water power development and the food problem

The great increase in population of the United States has been chiefly in urban districts while the increase in population in rural districts has been comparatively small. This results in a continuously growing demand for food with a relatively small proportion of our population as food producers. The production of some of our most highly nitrogenous food products has been steadily declining and American farmers have been producing less per acre than European farmers. The food supply depends in the last analysis upon the plant food supply. The production of nitrogen, which is one of the three principal fertilizer ingredients, is distinctly a water power proposition involving the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen. More than 80 per cent of mixed fertilizers produced in the United States is used east of the Allegheny Mountains, and for the fertilizer problem the water power must be developed in those parts of the country where the demand for intensive agriculture exists. A feasible and proper plan for water power development in this country will have a profound influence on the development and distribution of cheap fertilizer ingredients which are so necessary under modern intensive conditions in the growth of population and its relation to agriculture.