“What does cause ‘the poverty that suffers,’ then?” asked Will.
“Drink, mainly,” broke in Phil.
“By the way,” said Irv, looking up from some figures he had been making, “does it occur to you that our corn crop alone, even if we produced nothing else in the world, would furnish food enough for all the people in this country?”
“No; how do you figure it, Irv?” asked Will.
“Why, Ed says the corn crop amounts to 2,000,000,000 bushels. There are 56 pounds in a bushel, or 112,000,000,000 pounds in the crop. That would give every man, woman, and child in our 70,000,000 population 1600 pounds of corn per year, or pretty nearly four and a half pounds apiece each day in the year, while Ed says no man needs more than three pounds of food per day. So the corn crop, whether eaten as bread or partly in the shape of meat, furnishes a great deal more food than the American people can possibly eat. No wonder we ship such vast quantities of foodstuffs abroad!”
“That’s encouraging,” said Phil; “but it’s bedtime. Hie ye to your bunks! Whose watch is it?”
And so the scuttle chatter ended.