USES OF LAND 159 



38% was available as animal feedstuffs. 1 If the dried brewers' 

 grains are taken as equivalent in feed-value to barley weight for 

 weight, it would appear that during the years 1909-13, about 

 52% of the total supplies of barley in the United Kingdom was 

 fed to animals directly and indirectly. The proportion of the sup- 

 plies consumed as human food, exclusive of that used in the manu- 

 facture of beer, was very low, standing at less than 2% in the period 

 taken. 1 The proportion of the barley supplies used as animal 

 feedstuffs throughout the Continent of Europe and in North 

 America would seem to be at least as high as that in the United 

 Kingdom ; it is probably higher because greater quantities are 

 available at farm prices than in the United Kingdom. In Asia 

 and Northern Africa the proportion of the barley supplies used as 

 human food is apparently quite high and the proportion fed directly 

 to animals correspondingly low. However, according to the avail- 

 able figures, less than 10% of the world's crop is grown in these 

 regions. On the whole, therefore, as long as the crop is disposed 

 of in the pre-war manner, any extension in the cultivation of 

 barley, at any rate, in regions populated by Europeans, will be 

 somewhat favourable on the balance to animal industries ; the more 

 so since, as in the case of wheat and rye, the greater part of the 

 straw in available as fodder wherever food-animals are reared. 



For the production of wheat and barley it is possible that hitherto 

 unutilised areas may be added by means of dry-farming and irriga- 

 tion in North and South America and Australia. American 

 authorities are doubtful as to the prospects of profitable cereal 

 cultivation on lands reclaimed by these methods, but seem more 

 hopeful that such cultivation will prove remunerative, if combined 

 with animal-rearing. 2 In this case a larger proportion of the barley 

 produced might be fed to animals on the spot. In both the 

 Northern and the Southern Hemispheres recent experience shows 

 that the cultivation of wheat and of barley tends to invade the 

 colder sheep lands with specialisation in rapidly maturing species, 

 rather than the warmer and moister regions towards the tropics 

 where cotton, maize and other special crops compete with live-stock 

 in the occupation of the land. 



Maize is also consumed in appreciable quantities directly by 

 human beings; and industrial uses such, for example, as in the pro- 

 duction of starch, glucose and spirits, account for another appre- 

 ciable fraction of the crop sold off farms. In the United States, 

 which produces on an average about three-quarters of the world's 

 maize, less than one-tenth is used directly as human food, while 

 in Argentina, which ranks next, scarcely any is so consumed. 

 Some other countries, notably Italy and Mexico, use nearly the 



1 The percentages have been calculated from figures given in Prof. Wood's 

 publication, The National Food Supply in Peace and Way." p. 17. 



. Dept. Agric. Year Book, 1912, pp. 463-471. Cf. also MAX 

 Augustin, Die Entwicklung der Landwirlschaft in den Vereinigten Staaien, 

 1914, pp. 130-7, and J. Russell Smith Industry and Commerce 1916. p. 66, 



