114 PRODUCTION 



The rapid strides made by the oil-crushing and extracting in- 

 dustries of Western Europe during the years 1900-14 were remark- 

 able, and give promise of great developments in the future. These 

 industries have received stimulus, first, from the increasing market 

 for margarine in recent years, 1 and second, from the fact that it 

 has been found that the cake and meal residues have feeding- 

 values as high as those of the better known linseed and cotton- 

 seed cakes. 2 



The supplies of palm-kernels and coco-nuts seem practically 

 unlimited. Hitherto in most of the producing regions, very little 

 effort has been made to plant or cultivate the trees, so that the 

 cost price represents the cost of collection together with transport 

 charges only. With the construction of railways and other means 

 of transport, and the development of concessions under European 

 control and management in West Africa and elsewhere, it is likely 

 that the world's supplies of tropical oil-bearing seeds and nuts will 

 increase considerably in the future. 



These developments will have marked effects upon industries 

 devoted to the production of animal foodstuffs. With further 

 technical improvements in the manufacture of margarine on a 

 large scale, this product may even become a serious competitor 

 with butter. 8 



Commercial oils used in soap-making and other similar industries 

 will be available in greater quantities, so that fats of animal origin 

 can be largely dispensed with for such purposes. The cattle and 

 pig-raising industries of the more densely peopled countries of the 

 Northern temperate zone will have enormous supplies of cheaper 

 oil-cakes and meals of high nutrient value available for stock con- 

 sumption. The fertility of the land in these countries will be 

 indirectly increased by feeding stock with these concentrated 

 materials of tropical origin ; and as the world-problem at the pre- 

 sent time is to utilise the seemingly inexhaustible fertility of the 

 tropics rather than to draw further upon the limited stores of 

 feitility in the temperate zone, this in itself is of no small importance. 



Since the establishment of lines of cheap sea transport for bulk 

 cargoes all over the world, it has become theoretically possible to 

 organise production of foodstuffs according to regional capacity, 

 irrespective of the concentration of population. Though this has 

 been done very imperfectly hitherto, any assistance from tropical 

 sources is of great value in increasing the production of animal 

 foodstuffs, in view of the strain now thrown upon the producing 

 areas of temperate latitude. Since the tree-vegetation of the 

 tropics exhausts soil fertility much less than the annual crops of 

 temperate regions, since also the fertility of tropical lands is 



1 See below, Part II., Chap, ii., pp. 209, 210. 



a See Report of Committee on Edible Oil-producing Nuts and Seeds (Cd* 

 8247), also Journal of Board of Agriculture, Sept., 1917, p. 663. 



3 See Messrs. Weddel & Co.'s remarks in their Annual Review of the Dairy 

 Trade, 1913, pp. 13, 14. 



