EFFORTS TO INCREASE FOOD RESOURCES 



crossed with sweeter kinds, and a new fruit is now grown 

 wherever plums are wanted. To take the place of the 

 laurel and rhododendron about the house, coralberries and 

 snowberries were taken from the pastures. Flowers were 

 brought from the drier and warmer regions of the earth, and 

 bloomed abundantly. Vegetable varieties were found that 

 would do well on the various soils and in the dry air. 



The early settlers first used pigs and poultry, but the 

 larger farm animals were brought over as soon as their 

 means permitted. The ocean passage required about three 

 months, and this was very trying for animals in confinement, 

 half of a shipment often dying en route. Food and water 

 for the voyage were no small items. As the farmers became 

 more prosperous, they brought from England the finest 

 Shorthorn and Hereford cattle that money could buy, 

 the best Shropshire and Southdown sheep, and Yorkshire 

 and Berkshire pigs. From France came Percheron horses, 

 and from Germany came Holstein cows. All of these breeds 

 had been centuries in the making, but many of them have 

 since been brought to their finest development in the valleys 

 of the Ohio and the Missouri. 



The possibilities from new animal importations are by 

 no means exhausted. Reindeer from Northern Europe have 

 recently been established in Alaska and are valuable 

 producers of meat. A pigmy hippopotamus from Liberia 

 has been suggested as a meat animal for southern swamps. 

 Ostriches are grown in the Southwest. Zebus from India, 

 crossed with native cattle in the South, thrive where the 

 older breeds are subject to disease. In return for all these 

 valuable animals from Europe, America has sent back 

 little in kind. The native bison has possibilities as a meat 

 producer, but up to the present time has never been used 

 profitably in any part of the world. The mountain sheep 

 and prairie hen were large enough to be used, but the 

 animals of this type already tamed were so well developed 



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