HISTORICAL SURVEY 11 



The Enclosures of Common Land in England are a clear example of 

 this process. Wars, though still frequent and widespread enough, 

 became less fatal, with the greater stability of governments, to 

 developments in agriculture and animal husbandry. The 18th 

 century saw the intioduction of rotation farming on a permanent 

 and scientific basis, furnishing fodder and root crops as regular 

 winter foodstuffs for live-stock. The carrying capacity of the land 

 per acre was thus greatly increased, and^the necessity^for killing 

 off cattle and sheep at the commencement of^each^winter^gradually 

 disappeared. Supplies of meat throughout the year were in this 

 way made much more regular. Horses came during this period 

 to be used more generally for farm work, with the consequences 

 that cultivation became more efficient, and that cattle were set free 

 as meat and milk producers. As the 19th a century advanced, grain 

 came to be transported more cheaply by land and sea, so that not 

 only was land, taken for cereals, once more set free for animals, 

 but also animals could be raised with the aid of imported materials 

 on land that would otherwise have been incapable of supporting 

 them. As railways came into working order, live animals could be 

 conveyed over longer distances by land than it had been possible 

 to drive them without serious loss in condition. With the improve- 

 ments in steamships, from 1840 onwards, live animals and fresh 

 meat could also be carried short distances by sea, as, for example, 

 from the Continent of Europe to England. This was, in reality, 

 the first example in the world of any extensive and continued trade 

 in fresh animal foodstuffs. Great Britain, having gained great 

 advantages by the firm establishment of manufacturing industries 

 before and during the Napoleonic Wars, was in advance of all other 

 countries, and naturally, increased rapidly in wealth and popula- 

 tion. Since also the area of agricultural land was strictly limited, 

 importations of grain from Europe, which had begun in the 18th 

 century, were followed by importations of meat in the 19th century. 

 In this connection, it is interesting to note that pig-meat was im- 

 ported before the days of refrigeration, in larger quantities than 

 any other kind of meat, owing to its being preserved mainly in the 

 salted form. This trade was favoured by the fact that London, 

 which was always the most populous centre in the country, lay 

 opposite, and within easy reach of the chief meat-producing coun- 

 tries of Europe, namely, those in the lowlands round the North 

 Sea. Further, with the decline in population in Ireland after the 

 potato famines and the consequent heavy emigration thence to 

 the New W T orld, a surplus of meat and dairy produce became avail- 

 able from that country for the rapidly developing markets of Great 

 Britain. Down to 1875, and indeed to the close of the 19th century, 

 continental European countries remained largely self - sufficing in 

 animal foodstuffs, except so far as certain not very considerable 

 quantities of imported feedstuffs were fed to animals and thus con- 

 stituted indirect imports of meat and dairy produce. On the 

 Continent industrialisation was nowhere so marked as in England, 



