ANIMAL INDUSTRIES IN AGRICULTURE 147 



fertilisers to correct soil exhaustion. 1 In many cases, of course, 

 owing to climatic conditions and the lack of capital and technical 

 knowledge, this will be impossible for many years to come. The 

 tendency, in any case, may well be towards greater specialisation 

 in the higher-priced cereals for human consumption, wherever the 

 rearing of live-stock is out of the question. 



In the meantime, at any rate, there is no essential reason for a 

 shortage of feedstuffs. Maize, oats and barley can be grown more 

 profitably than wheat at the pre-war price levels in wide regions, and 

 even under exclusive cereal cropping some rotation of grains with 

 wheat is found advantageous, and potatoes may be grown more 

 widely than at present as a stock feed in the colder intensive 

 farming regions of the North Temperate Zone. Moreover, as has 

 already been noted, enormously greater quantities of oil-cake from 

 tropical oil-seeds are likely to be available for stock-consumption 

 in the future, and this may cause a considerable net addition to 

 the world-supplies of concentrated feedstuffs, even though other 

 sources show some decline. 



The carelessness and indifference of farmers with regard to the 

 preservation of soil fertility in many parts of the world during the 

 last three or four decades, may be ascribed to the extremely low 

 prices for agricultural produce as sold from farms, till quite recently. 

 It is not likely that prices will again fall so low for a long time to 

 come, and there is therefore reason to believe that more con- 

 structive methods of agriculture will be found possible and pro- 

 fitable in the future. The fact that fertile new lands can no longer 

 be so easily found to exploit, when occupied ones have been 

 exhausted, may impose these methods as a necessity in the future, 

 with beneficial results to animal industries, since they are the key 

 to permanent intensive agriculture. a 



1 It is important to observe that if the introduction of animal industries 

 into such regions causes a reduction in their surplus of concentrated feedstuffs, 

 exported hitherto to the countries of Western Europe, to that extent there 

 will be no gain to the production of animal foodstuffs throughout the world 

 as a whole. 



2 During the 19th century the fertility of the soil has suffered in many 

 parts of the world, especially in the newer countries, owing to the institution 

 of private ownership and of private capital in land which has demanded a 



ime return. Though corporate ownership would probably lead to a 

 more far-sighted policy, the time seems very distant when such a system will 

 be generally adopted. See also next chapter. 



