Poultry was the only exception among meats to this history of diminishing supply, increased prices and diminishing demand. Yet the gain in the number of all fowls on American farms was only 17 per cent., while the population was increasing 22.3 per cent. The American production of nut foods was increasing 55.7 per cent. in the same period without beginning to meet the demand.

Though the increase in value of the American nut crop was 128.1 per cent., still the increase in consumption required an increase in imports so great that in 1910 America was supplying only one-fourth of the nuts it was eating; while in 1900 it supplied half.

Government figures, taken from a leading nut publication, show that in 1900 the value of nuts imported into the United States was $3,484,651. By 1910 it had risen to $12,775,196, which is 365% of 1900 importations, although the population of the United States increased only 22.3% during that ten-year period.

In 1919 there were $57,499,044 worth of nuts imported, which is 450% of the importations in 1910, although the 1920 census shows an increase of only 15% in population since 1910. Nut importations in 1919 are 1650% of those in 1900, while population increased only 40% between 1900 and 1920.

We see, therefore, that there is a gain in nut importations between 1900 and 1910 twelve times as great as the gain in population; that the later increase is so great that this gain between 1900 and 1919 is 39 times as great as the increase in population. Surely this is conclusive evidence of the great increase in nut consumption in the United States, when we remember how greatly the American nut crop was increasing during this period.

These authentic figures astonish even the man who has learned by experience that “nut meat is the real meat” of greatest food value; for they show what great number of his fellow countrymen have proved their belief in the same fact. The man who has looked upon nuts as a holiday diet alone, cannot fail to see his error, when he realizes that this increase in the importation of nut meats in 1919 compared to 1900 is nearly nine times as great as the increase in population; despite the largely increasing American production.

Higher education in food values has led people to realize the necessity for different and more varied diet—and this educational development has been facilitated also by economic conditions.

As population increases, land becomes more valuable. As land becomes more valuable—intensive farming is practiced. Grazing becomes virtually impossible under such conditions; and, despite all the efforts of the Department of Agriculture experts, cattle raising is pushed farther and farther from the large centers of population. Increased transportation and costs of refrigeration mean increased meat prices—even the importation of large quantities of South American beef between 1910 and 1914, for instance, failed to keep meat at a price low enough so that it could constitute the large food element which it once was on the American table.