The Elkins Inter Mountain

SAYS WORLD WILL ALWAYS HAVE AN AMPLE FOOD CROP
Professor of California University Says Food Supply Never Will Run Low Despite Huge Population Increase.

BERKELEY, Cal., Dec. 27.- (By the A.P.)-Will the population of the world ever increase to such numbers that the food supply will run out? "No," predicts Professor C. C. Plehn of the department of economics in the University of California.

But the professor qualifies his negative by saying that if the population of the world ever increases as fully as it has the power to, there certainly will be a shortage of food. He explains that, as a matter of statistics, this probably never can happen, since events and conditions always intervene to prevent over-population.

Yet, he concedes, in certain countries this economic over-population has occurred. He cites the annual famines in China and India, which he contends are due to the fact that the birth rate never has been kept down in those countries and consequently the food supply proves inadequate.

"Dread diseases always follow famine in the train of excessive population and shortage of food," the professor points out, and he states further that as population increases the land is proportionately overworked.

"In America, especially, population has always been held in check. People are made to realize the importance of keeping a balance between the population and the food supply. Farmers manage to produce enough food to satisfy everybody, even tho agricultural methods improve more slowly than the population increases. The amount of effort expended in labor and machinery for getting food is increasing steadily, so that, although population tends to increase more rapidly than food, there never will be danger of food giving out."