14 ANIMAL FOOD SUPPLIES 



to local., climatic and other conditions. The perfecting of the 

 separator and the establishment of butter and cheese factories 

 have not only enormously increased the quantity and the quality 

 of the output of dairy products, but have also made widespread 

 dairying for export possible in new countries of dear labour, where 

 otherwise the industry would have been impossible. Thus Den- 

 mark, Western Siberia, South-Eastern Australia, Eastern Canada, 

 Holland and New Zealand have specialised more or less in dairy 

 products, the first three in butter, Eastern Canada in cheese, and 

 the two last in butter and cheese ; Denmark and Eastern Canada 

 have specialised in bacon pigs, Holland in pork pigs, and the maize 

 belt of the United States in lard pigs. Similarly also the American 

 prairie uplands, Argentina and Queensland, with extensive areas 

 of " ranching " lands, have specialised in beef-production for 

 export ; the semi-arid regions of Australia and Argentina in mutton 

 and wool sheep ; and New Zealand with an abundance of succulent 

 vegetation, in high-grade mutton, and especially lamb. A number 

 of developments have rapidly caused the elimination of cheap and 

 inferior products. The most important have been improvements 

 in pastures and fodder crops, and in the various breeds of cattle, 

 sheep, pigs, and poultry. Progress has been stimulated also by 

 labour-saving inventions of greater efficiency in the form of dairying 

 machinery and appliances, of the installations of meat-freezing 

 and meat-packing establishments, and, above all, of means of 

 transport and of storage already referred to. The only exception, 

 perhaps, is found in Siberia, where development has been latest, 

 and even there producers are fast coming into line with the rest 

 of the world. In the British market the distinction between the 

 higher-priced home product and the so-called inferior imported 

 article tends to disappear, except in the case of mutton, which 

 cannot be carried overseas by the chilled process. In the case of 

 dairy products, especially butter, owing to greater specialisation 

 and a fuller utilisation of machinery abroad, the imported article 

 tends even to be superior to that produced at home. 



In the last decade consumption seems everywhere to have been 

 overtaking supply, even though tariff barriers have so far largely 

 kept the industrial regions of Central Europe, notably in Germany, 

 out of the world's markets as competitors for the available supplies. 

 Prices have advanced distinctly as a consequence, and this has 

 been reflected in a sharp rise in land values in the newer surplus- 

 producing countries. Already the large-scale cattle-ranching 

 industries of North America and of some other regions show signs 

 of disappearing, owing to the advance of settlement, and the util- 

 isation of the land for arable farms. This in itself is a remarkable 

 fact, and is analogous to a similar far-reaching change in the earlier 

 history of animal food supplies, namely the disappearance of 

 game as an important source of food supply. Even in Australia 

 the large sheep " squatter " is retreating in favour of the smaller 

 wheat grower and dairy farmer, behind the line of 12-inch rainfall, 



