PART I.-PRODUCTION 



CHAPTER I 

 STATISTICAL MATERIAL 



IN discussing questions relating to the production of animal 

 foodstuffs, some preliminary cautions relating to statistical 

 material are necessary. The first concerns the enumerations of 

 farm animals as published for different countries from time to 

 time. For some countries only estimates are available, and even 

 in the more advanced countries it is hardly possible, under the 

 existing methods, to obtain quite accurate figures. Again, the 

 methods of conducting enumerations and even the time of the year 

 at which they are made, differ from one country to another, so that 

 the results are of modified value for comparative purposes. Finally, 

 distinctions are not ordinarily made between those animals that 

 are kept for food- producing purposes and those that are not, such, 

 for example, as breeding-stock in all countries, specialised wool- 

 producing sheep in Australia and elsewhere, and draught cattle 

 in India and in a number of other countries, that produce quite 

 inferior meat (consumed locally, if at all), and nothing for export 

 trade except hides and bones. For the purpose of accuracy, in 

 dealing with actual and possible food supplies, all such classes of 

 animals should be clearly distinguished from the rest. Breeding- 

 stock, however, though of little value for immediate food supplies, 

 are of the greatest positive significance in relation to future supplies. 

 Indeed, their numbers may be taken as some index of future 

 developments. In this sense they have a positive value, while the 

 other classes above mentioned have but small direct value. 



The second caution under this head is perhaps even more 

 important, because generally overlooked. It is to be noted that the 

 enumerations of cattle, sheep and pigs taken in different countries, 

 and even in the same country at different times, do not, for com- 

 parative purposes., accurately indicate the amount of meat, etc., 

 available for home consumption or export, even when allowance 

 is made as suggested above. Improvements in breeds of animals 

 and in methods of feeding have certainly resulted in a much more 

 rapid maturity of beef-cattle and similarly also of mutton-sheep 

 and of all kinds of pigs. The net effect of such changes is to make 

 the turnover, so to speak, from a given number of animals much 

 more rapid. It is obvious that if a steer can be finished in two 

 year* or less, where formerly it took, say, three years to bring him 

 to the same weight and condition , for practical purposes the meat 

 production per unit enumerated (breeding- stock being omitted), 

 has increased by 50 per cent. The average composition and stage 



