The gasoline, kerosene, or heavy oil one man farm tractor, so made that it can be used to plow, to climb a side hill, to run a saw or a pump, is the coming factor in garden and farm advance. Huge fortune awaits the first manufacturer who will standardize it, cheapen it, and specialize on it. The horse is the greatest care and the greatest risk on the little farm. He costs more than a tractor would, he is eating his head off half the time, he can't he worked overtime without injury, not even as much as a man can be; all too soon he dies, more missed than any member of the family.
When this is popularized the "Three Acres" can well be extended to five.
CHAPTER XXIV
SOME EXPERIMENTAL FOODS
FIFTY-EIGHT years ago Abraham Lincoln said "Population must increase rapidly, more rapidly than in former times, and ere long the most valuable of all arts will be the art of deriving subsistence from the smallest area of soil. No community whose every member possesses this art can ever be the victim of oppression in any of its forms. Such community will alike be independent of crowned kings, money kings, and land kings."
The future, it seems, has many strange dishes in store for the American stomach. Whether you are rich or one of the plain people that have to work, whether the idea of new fantastic food appeals to your palate or to your pocketbook, you will be attracted by the array of foreign viands with curious names which have already been successfully introduced and are now beginning to be marketed in this country. Mr. William N. Taft, in the Technical World Magazine, presents the following wild menu for the dinner table:
Jujube Soup
Brisket of Antelope
Boiled Petsai
Dasheen au Gratin
Creamed Udo
Soy Bean and Lichee Nut Salad
Yang Taw Pie
Mangoes
Kaki
Sake.
This, he assures us, is not the bill of fare of a Chinese eating house, nor yet of a Japanese restaurant, it is the daily meal of an American family two decades hence, if the Department of Agriculture succeeds in its attempt to introduce a large number of new foods to this country for the dual purpose of supplying new dainties and reducing the cost of living. Uncle Sam has determined to decrease the price of food as much as possible, and, for this purpose, delegated Dr. David S. Fairchild, Agricultural Explorer in charge of the Foreign Plant Section of the Bureau of Plant Industry, in particular, to see what can be done about it.
More than 30,000 fruits and vegetables have been tested by Uncle Sam's experts and, according to Dr. Fairchild, a goodly portion of the foodstuffs which have been regarded as staples since the days of the first settler are doomed. Consider for example "Jujube Soup!" Mention that to the average person and he will answer: