Population Capacity

The earth seems as crowded as it can be to one pushing through Broadway, Los Angeles, or Broadway, Manhattan, through Washington Street, Boston, or Market Street, San Francisco. But actually the earth is far from its capacity of population. How far, foreign professors visiting at the University of Chicago discussed last week.

World population now is about two billion. At the present rate of increase it should double in between no and 150 years. There is, the scientists figured, enough arable land on earth to supply food for an eventual ten or eleven billion persons. The U. S. share of those hypothetical numbers is eight hundred millions, about seven times the present U. S. census. The U. S. now has an average of 40 people to the square mile, Australia two, England 700. If all the earth were as thickly inhabited as is England, world population would be 37 billions.