2 ANIMAL FOOD SUPPLIES 



definitely determined, nor is it constant from year to year." x This 

 depends on the abundance of the crops and upon the market con- 

 ditions of the moment. Obviously an abundant harvest of cereals 

 and other food crops in any particular country, or in a number of 

 countries connected by cheap transport, may well cause a large 

 part of the surplus to be fed to stock, since the numbers of most 

 domestic animals, especially of pigs and poultry, can be increased 

 with comparative rapidity ; and conversely, a poor harvest means 

 that a high proportion, if not the whole, of certain crops is con- 

 sumed as human food, and may even involve unusual slaughterings 

 of meat-producing animals. 2 In other words, it is not possible to 

 determine exactly what proportions of the various food crops will 

 be consumed directly by human beings, or will be so consumed 

 directly in the forms of meat and of dairy and poultry produce. 



However, in spite of these facts, certain broad generalisations 

 are possible. Maize, except in Mexico, Italy and certain Southern 

 States in America, is produced and enters into international trade 

 almost entirely as animal feedstuffs ; the same is true of the poorer 

 qualities of barley, and of the various kinds of seed and oil-cake, 

 including the by-products from the crushing of tropical oil-seeds. 

 Again, almost the whole of the enormous quantities of offals and 

 by-products from the milling of cereals, such as wheat and rice, 

 becomes food for domestic animals. 



Oats, however, raise a difficulty of another kind in the demarca- 

 tion of animal products from other articles of human food. Since 

 oats are fed mainly to horses (which may be used either for agri- 

 culture or for transport and pleasure purposes) , but are partly also 

 fed to meat or milk-producing animals, and partly used for direct 

 consumption as human food, it becomes a specially difficult matter 

 to estimate the relative value of this cereal in the production of 

 animal food supplies. Horses can scarcely be regarded as producers 

 of these latter articles. 3 Certainly farm horses are used chiefly 

 for the cultivation of the land for crops which in their turn may be 

 partly or entirely used to maintain cattle, sheep and pigs, but this 

 is too indirect for serious consideration. There is really no end to 

 the complications of the economic chain when contributing agents 

 are traced backwards to their prime sources. Oats that are fed 

 to horses, therefore, have little relation to the present inquiry. 

 The same principle may be followed with regard to all such parts 

 of ordinary vegetable and even animal food products as are diverted 

 in manufacture 4 or otherwise, from consumption as human food. 



1 U.S. Dept. of Agric. Bureau of Statistics, Bulletin 24, 1903 p. 82. 



2 See Henry C. Taylor, Agricultural Economics, 1905, pp. 145-7. 



3 In certain continental countries, notably France and Germany, large 

 numbers of horses are slaughtered for human food. The annual total is 

 probably about half a million. 



In the United States disused horses are converted largely in the cities into 

 " tankage," which, when dried and powdered, is used as a feedstuff for pigs. 



4 As, for example, in the manufacture of tallow, glycerine, soap, starch, 

 commercial alcohol, alcoholic drinks, etc. 



