18 PRODUCTION 



be noted that meat advanced rapidly in price after 1905, while 

 dairy produce fell relatively between 1900 and 1913. 1 



The points above discussed cannot always be referred to in the 

 course of the following chapters, but they require to be borne in 

 mind throughout whenever live-stock statistics and prices are 

 under discussion. 



With regard to statistical tables of production and export, it is, 

 in practice, found less necessary in dealing with animal produce 

 to take figures for an average of successive years (instead of for 

 single years) than it is in dealing with crop products. The latter 

 especially in countries subject to intermittent favourable or un- 

 favourable weather conditions, vary considerably from year to 

 year, and three or five-year averages are almost necessary to 

 give a clear account of periodical changes in production and export 

 or import trade. Single-year totals selected at regular intervals 

 may convey an entirely wrong impression. 



The production and export of animal foodstuffs do not vary so 

 much in yearly periods, according to the commoner irregularities 

 in the weather. Only occurrences of an extraordinary nature, such, 

 for example, as a protracted drought in Australia, have a marked 

 effect. Indeed unfavourable weather conditions, by diminishing 

 the available quantities of fodder and feedstuffs, may at first 

 increase rather than diminish the output of finished animal produce, 

 by forcing a number of animals into the produce market, that would 

 otherwise have been fed longer. The effects are thus postponed 

 and averaged somewhat. It is to be noted, however, that food 

 products from quickly-maturing animals are more sensitive in their 

 quantity to favourable or unfavourable weather conditions than 

 those from others. Thus lamb and pig-products are more sensitive 

 in this way than mutton, and mutton than beef. Dairy products 

 are somewhat sensitive in short periods to weather conditions as 

 affecting supplies of pasture and succulent fodder. 



Wherever changes in supplies are under consideration, it should 

 be noted that quantities are a much more reliable index than are 

 values. The quality of animal produce throughout the world has 

 certainly advanced in recent years, but prices have advanced much 

 more rapidly, and the effect of taking values alone would be to 

 exaggerate changes out of all due proportion. When it is necessary 

 to use values as a common denominator for a basis of comparison 

 between one time and another, of a number of different articles 

 taken together, it is best to reduce them by means of the index 

 numbers of the wholesale prices, say, on the British market. Thus 

 the index of wholesale prices for meat and dairy produce on that 



1 According to figures given in the Statistical Abstract for the United 

 Kingdom, 1915 (Cd. 8128), the rise in the price of imported wheat in the period 

 1900 to 1913 was 21-8 per cent., with which the corresponding increases for 

 imported food articles of animal origin may be compared. The latter were 

 as follows : Bacon, 72%; beef, 11-7%; mutton. 19%; butter, 12-6% ; 

 cheese, 21-4% ; eggs, 39%. 



