INTRODUCTION 3 



which is not often the case, it is simply with a view to the cow 

 directly producing human food, such as butter, cheese, new 

 milk and veal ; waste material is, in their view, quite good enough 

 for the pig. Agricultural conditions which allow the products 

 <# the soil to be consumed by animals which, after a period of 

 slow growth, will appear upon the table as meat, hardly enter 

 into the continental view of farming. With us, on the other 

 hand, beef is a most important product, perhaps the most 

 important, as regards cattle, of all our grass-land products ; and, 

 before the war, much more than 50 per cent, of our land was 

 permanently kept under grass. The only product of our cattle- 

 husbandry to be compared with beef was the new milk, required 

 by large residential districts; for our cheese-making industry, 

 whilst still -important, was, and is, very small, and our butter- 

 making, except. as an adjunct to calf-rearing, had disappeared 

 in the majority even of the most rural districts. Certain parts 

 of Ireland must be excepted from this last statement, but even 

 in the case of Irish farmers, it is doubtful whether calf-rearing 

 or butter-making is the more important. Amongst English 

 farmers it is a common practice to devote about three acres of 

 medium quality grass-land to their cows ; in return they get, per 

 annum, one well-reared calf and slightly increased bulk in the 

 cow. It is this kind of pastoral husbandry, forced upon us by 

 the economic conditions prevailing since about 1875, tnat * s m 

 people's minds when they urge pig-grazing upon the notice of 

 our grass-land farmers. The Dutchfarmer might well be amazed 

 at the idea of using some of his magnificent Polder pastures for 

 pork production ; he only knows of this land as being used for 

 growing milk. An acre of his land will yield him approximately 

 300 gallons of milk, whereas our very best grass-land does well 

 if it produces 280 Ib. of prime bullock, equivalent to 160 Ib. of 

 meat. Though it may be possible to show that pigs fed upon 

 grass-land will produce more pork than the bullock will pro- 

 duce beef, it cannot be claimed that, under the most favourable 

 conditions, they will produce the same amount of human food 

 as the milch cow. 



Here and there the foreigner does grow some prime beef; 

 it is not an unknown thing in his husbandry, but the process 



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