The Harvester World: Volume 9, number 3, March 1918

              Why the World Will Not Starve

CERTAINLY no one either in this country or abroad can view the food situ¬ ation with equanimity. It is evident that the United States not only must assume her share of the burden of actual fight-

enough food for the entire North and her armies, but exported mil¬ lions of dollars worth to Europe. It is not too much to say the reaper won the Civil War for the North. But suppose for a moment that we had nothing but the reaper to harvest the immense crops that will be planted this year. A reaper will cut about six acres of grain a day.

Half an acre a day with the sickle—and only one hundred years ago. In those days life even in peace times was a precarious proposition.

ing, but she must also produce food for herself and her allies. This stu¬ pendous task would be impossible were it not for our modern farm machinery, and more notably the grain binder.
What the reaper, a machine which cut a swath only five feet wide, rak¬ ing the wheat in the form of gavels off into the stubble, did for the North in the Civil War, the binder is doing for democracy in the present war. The binder has a much greater task, but it can perforin it because it has a greater capacity than the reaper, it delivers the grain neatly bound instead of in loose gavels, and al¬ together it does with one man ap¬ proximately three times as much work in the same length of time as a man and a reaper.
Although the reaper was invented in 1831, it was not until the Civil War broke and withdrew one-third of the farm population that its in¬ calculable value became apparent. The depleted farm forces with the help of the reaper, raised not only
It will not bind it. It is necessary for men to follow the reaper, bind the cut grain into bundles, and build them into shocks. To harvest the 1918 crop it would require three times as many men and horses to get the job done during the normal
Two and one-half acres is a little better, but it would not go far towards feeding the multitudes that now inhabit the earth.
The modern binder—the machine that made big crops possible. Without it the present war could not be won.
The first reaper—a great stride towards big crops.    It won the Civil War.
harvesting season, which is short enough at best. Itis more than likely that every able-bodied person, male or female, would have to be engaged either in agricultural pursuits, in the making of war materials, or in active service at the front. Even then it is highly improbable that the country would be able to render effective service abroad, because of its in¬ ability to feed and transport an army of sufficient size to make its power felt.
It is the binder that has made immense crops possible, opened up the vast farm lands of the West, and unlocked the treasures of the wheat belt that would for¬ ever have remained closed to the old-fashioned reaper. It is the binder that will win the war if we can but provide a means of trans¬ porting its products to those who need them.
If our problem is one only of pro¬ duction, the world will not starve. The binder and the other modern farm machines will take care of that.