HISTORICAL SURVEY 13 



home market of the surplus at profitable prices, and has incidentally 

 raised the local price and probably to some extent reduced the 

 consumption per head. 



The year 1875 marks the commencement of the recent period 

 which continues to the present time. During these forty years 

 the most remarkable developments ever known in the history of 

 the world's production, distribution and consumption of animal 

 foodstuffs have taken place. The rapid improvement and 

 cheapening of railway and of steamship transport, the introduction 

 of refrigeration on ocean vessels, of the refrigerator car on long 

 overland journeys and of cold storage in the ports and in the large 

 centres of production and of consumption have all combined to 

 make the whole civilised world, except for tariff barriers and inter- 

 national wars, one market for meat and dairy products ; so that 

 there is now little variation in the regularity and prices of supplies 

 from season to season and from year to year. These forty years 

 also have seen the opening up, as fields for the production of animals 

 and animal foodstuffs, of areas of productive land, together larger 

 than the whole of Europe, first in North America, later in Austra- 

 lasia and Argentina, and finally in Siberia. Moreover, from the 

 same regions the world has derived a great surplus of animal feed- 

 stuffs, including North American oats, cotton-seed and linseed, 

 Argentine maize, linseed and oats, and Russian and Siberian 

 barley and seed-cakes. As a market for such surplus products 

 Great Britain has maintained the lead she gained during the earlier 

 quarters of the 19th century. Indeed down to the beginning of 

 the present century Great Britain practically monopolised the 

 world's surplus of animal foodstuffs, and took the more important 

 part of the world's surplus of animal feedstufis. Only during the last 

 two decades have other countries in Western Europe begun to take any 

 appreciable part of the former, or any considerable part of the 

 latter. So far as the live-stock in all the newly settled countries is 

 concerned, it is remarkable that the foundations of improved stock 

 of meat-producing animals and of dairy cattle have been, in prac- 

 tically every instance, the British thoroughbred strains. This is 

 due partly to the lead taken by Great Britain in stock-breeding in 

 the 18th and 19th centuries, and partly also to the fact that the 

 new countries were settled either by English-speaking people or 

 under British influence. At all events, the world in general during 

 this recent period has taken advantage of the improvements made 

 earlier by the British. 



When the first rush of cheap, ungraded exports of animal products 

 was over, consumption commenced once more, after about the 

 year 1895, with the filling up of new countries and the increase in 

 population and purchasing power in North-Western Europe, to 

 adjust itself to production. Thenceforward specialisation began 

 to appear in all producing and exporting countries. Each region 

 has tended to adopt more particularly that form of animal industry 

 for which it is best adapted, and to evolve crossbreds most suitable 



