ANIMAL INDUSTRIES IN AGRICULTURE 14J 



In the regions outside Western Europe, taken together, there 

 has been a comparatively slow increase in the exported surplus of 

 meats and dairy produce since the year 1900, owing chiefty to the 

 rapid decline in the North American supplies. 1 Moreover, there 

 was an increasing tendency for consignments of live food-animals, 

 meat and butter to be sent from certain of these regions to others 

 in the same group rather than to Western Europe. 



It is clear that questions of soil fertility and the operation of the 

 rule of diminishing returns present some kind of limitation at the 

 present time upon constantly increasing production of animal 

 foodstuffs from the countries already under contribution. Countries 

 are found in all stages of development in animal industries; and 

 the history of agricultural progress tends to follow the same general 

 course in all new temperate countries. At any given moment 

 the operation of diminishing returns affects different countries 

 unequally, and is by no means uniformly progressive. It may 

 march rapidly as long as an extensive system is followed, but may 

 be reversed at a later time when a more intensive system is intro- 

 duced. Where animal industries are followed, diminishing returns 

 are seldom very obvious unless over-stocking has been pronounced, 

 and these industries constitute one of the most ready means of 

 restoring fertility lost by excessive cropping. Obviously, however, 

 limits always exist as to the number of stock that a given area of 

 land will carry unless feedstuffs are purchased from elsewhere, 

 since food-animals live entirely upon plant produce. In the last 

 resort, therefore, when land is a limited quantity, the increased 

 production of animal foodstuffs depends upon proper supplies of 

 fertilisers. Experience shows that for maximum production per 

 acre (and often for maximum profits as well), the more diversified 

 the farm organisation is, the better 2 ; but the ultimate problem 

 is to increase constantly the quantity of plant food for man or beast 

 which the average acre yields. 



Under simple pastoral conditions, the losses in soil fertility tend 

 to be balanced by the gains, but even natural pastures will not 

 bear stocking beyond a certain point. Over-stocking leads to a 

 partial or a complete destruction of the native grasses as experi- 

 ence in North and South America has shown. 3 Provided, however, 



1 The quantities of butter and of cheese which reached Western Europe 

 from these regions increased noticeably after the year 1900, owing to the 

 large exports of butter from Siberia and New Zealand and of cheese from the 

 latter country, which more than balanced decreased exports from North 

 America. The slow increase in the meat surplus from these regions is not 

 surprising in view of the fact that whereas in the period 1901 to 1912 the 

 exports of live animals (reduced to dressed weight), meat and meat products 

 from the United States declined by about 570,000 tons, those from South 

 America, the only other region that shows a marked increase, rose by about 

 300,000 tons only (that is, reckoning only the net surplus of live animals, 

 together with that of meat and meat products from Argentina, Uruguay, 

 and Chile combined, and omitting all items of trade between these countries) . 



See U.S. Dept. Agric., Bulletin 41, 1914, especially p. 30. 

 8 See U.S. Dept. Agric., Bulletin 34, p. 2. 



