30 PRODUCTION 



of feedstuffs as raw material, has less than \ hectare of productive 

 area per head of the population. Argentina and New Zealand, 

 both of which export great quantities of animal foodstuffs in 

 proportion to their total production, have corresponding high 

 ratios of productive area to population ; the latter over 19 hectares 

 and the former over 28 the highest in the world. 



As a rule, there is a tendency to attach undue importance to the 

 movements of exports and imports in considering supplies of 

 animal foodstuffs. It is to be noted that the changes in the relations 

 between production and consumption in the larger countries that 

 may perhaps enter little into international trade in these products, 

 have enormous weight. Thus, to take a single instance, the 

 production of butter in the United States is about 26 times that of 

 New Zealand, but the latter country looms large in the world's 

 international trade in butter while the former is insignificant. 

 Yet in proper study of the question, the changes in the relation 

 between production and consumption in the United States are of 

 much more far-reaching importance than those in the exportable 

 surplus from New Zealand. 



This caution being borne in mind, it is convenient to take certain 

 selected food articles of animal origin and consider the international 

 trade in them with reference to the groups of countries above 

 described. As regards exported surplus, butter is supplied mainly 

 by countries in Groups I. and III. and the same applies to cheese. 1 

 Specialisation is a marked feature in dairy products, and, with the 

 exceptions of Holland and New Zealand, no single country is a 

 great exporter of both butter and cheese at the present time. Beef 

 and mutton are supplied almost entirely by countries in Group I. 

 and here again specialisation is apt to arise, Argentina and 

 Australia being the only countries that export both beef and 

 mutton in considerable quantities. 2 With regard to live sheep and 

 cattle the countries in Group I. have now practically discontinued 

 exports to Europe owing to their distance from the consuming 

 markets and to other causes, 3 but there are considerable exports 

 of live meat animals, especially of cattle, from the countries of 

 Group III. in Western Europe. A peculiar feature of the trade in 



1 In butter, the most important exporting countries are Denmark, Russia 

 (with Siberia), Holland, France, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland ; 

 in cheese, Canada, New Zealand, Holland and Switzerland. 



2 In beef and mutton the chief surplus-producing countries are Argentina, 

 Australia, New Zealand, and Uruguay, in beef alone the United States, Canada 

 Denmark, Mexico and Ireland (exports of live cattle from the four latter being 

 reckoned as beef). 



3 The total exports of live animals in international trade were as follows : 

 (exports of nine principal countries only, and excluding France, Algeria, 

 Ireland and others) : 



CATTLE SHEEP PIGS. 



1895 1*1 mn*. * v ****. i aviarflapra 



T m O o n cLVCIdjiC t/d. 1W,UUU 



1,;1/ *o ,, *< ,, / 



The decline in overseas shipments of live animals is shown clearly by the 

 change in the imports of the United Kingdom, which, with the exception of 



