G ANIMAL FOOD SUPPLIES 



tensive consumption of meat and milk may have contributed 

 considerably to their marked vigour in pushing their way westward 

 and south-westward as well as south-eastward. At all events, on 

 reaching the well-watered grasslands and forest-clad uplands of 

 Central and Western Europe their momentum and vigour may 

 well have been increased by the great additions made to their food 

 supplies, obtained not only fxT>m the hunting of wild animals, but 

 also from their own domestic flocks through the abundance of 

 natural vegetation. Hence it is in Europe that the greatest develop- 

 ments in the specialisation of domestic animals for the production 

 of human food have taken place. 1 This development has been most 

 marked in Western and North- Western Europe, where climatic 

 conditions have at once been most favourable to the raising of 

 domestic animals, and have also made concentrated foodstuffs 

 necessary for healthy and vigorous human existence. From this 

 comparatively limited region of the world have come all the more 

 important breeds of draught horses, of sheep, and of meat and 

 milch cattle, and nearly all the best breeds of pigs. 



In tracing the general course of these developments in the 

 utilisation of domestic animals in Europe, from the earliest times, 

 it is found that some animals that at one time occupied a foremost 

 place have lost it, and that some that were at one time used for 

 several purposes, have come by specialisation to be used for one or 

 two purposes only, with a great gain in efficiency for work or in 

 quality of product. Thus in early historical times horses seem to 

 have been employed little for agriculture, being used, by reason 

 of their superior speed, mainly for war or for the chase. Such 

 primitive agriculture as existed was carried out by means of human 

 labour, often by serfs and slaves, or with the aid of cattle, which 

 were also the principal draught animals for vehicles, much as they 

 are in India at the present day. Under these conditions it was 

 hardly possible for cattle to be kept especially for the production 

 of meat and milk, or for these products to be anything but of an 

 inferior quality from such animals. With the specialisation of 

 the horse as a draught animal, cattle came in North- West era Europe, 

 but only since the Middle Ages, to be kept more particularly for 

 the supply of human foodstuffs, as now in England. The transition 

 process is by no means yet complete in many parts of the Continent. 

 On turning again to earlier times, it is found that sheep and goats 

 were the chief sources of meat and milk, owing probably to their 

 greater mobility and their better adaptation to the drier climates 

 of South-Eastern and Mediterranean Europe. The fact that the 

 centre of European civilisation and population moved from south- 

 east to north-west within historical times accounts for the dis- 

 placement of the goat among European nations from its former 

 high position as a most important meat and milk producer. Ex- 



1 Asia, for example, which was the original home of the sheep, has the lowest 

 density of sheep per square mile, while Europe has the highest among all 

 continents. 



