166 PRODUCTION 



pig-raising, which utilises the surplus skim-milk in the most 

 profitable way. 



The effects of the cultivation of this crop upon the production 

 of animal foodstuffs are therefore complex. In any case, the direct 

 contribution in the form of nutritious feedstuffs is small. Further, 

 animal-rearing on the pastoral basis is directly diminished, and the 

 supply of labour available for animal industries is also reduced. 

 So far as the land is cultivated more intensively and is made to 

 produce meat and milk as well as sugar, the net loss to animal 

 industries may not be great, and these industries may even gain 

 ground if concentrated feedstuffs are obtained from elsewhere ; 

 but then some allowance must be made for the cereals consumed 

 by power animals in the work of cultivation. However, in the 

 absence of sugar beet the land would probably be cultivated more 

 or less intensively because of its high quality, and would yield a 

 greater quantity of fodder and feedstuffs than at present. A man- 

 gold crop, for example, cultivated with the care usually given to 

 sugar beet, would produce a much greater quantity of nutrient 

 stock feed than the pulp residue of a beet crop on the same land 

 does, and would fit equally well into any system of rotation. Thus 

 while the great development of sugar beet cultivation in Europe 

 has in come ways been favourable to animal industries, so far as 

 it has restricted the resources in productive land, it has been un- 

 favourable. On the whole, sheep-farming has perhaps suffered 

 most through this development, and cattle-rearing least, as com- 

 pared with the extent to which animal industries might have 

 developed, if the countries of Europe had continued to rely upon 

 the tropical lands for their supplies of sugar. 



From the point of view of human food supplies in relation to land 

 area, it must be borne in mind that the 8 million tons of sugar annually 

 produced from beet prior to 1914 formed a considerable element 

 of nourishment in the dietary of white populations, and thus 

 relieved land to some extent from the production of other equiva- 

 lent foodstuffs. Animal industries, however, are almost entirely 

 confined to the temperate regions, and from the point of view of 

 such industries, the case for sugar beet would retain its force only 

 if sugar could be produced nowhere except in the richer agricultural 

 lands of the North Temperate Zone. Now at least one half of the 

 world's sugar output is produced in the tropics from sugar cane ; 

 and under the present circumstances, from the general standpoint, 

 any relief from the tropics in the production of foodstuffs and feed- 

 stuffs is to be welcomed. 1 There seems no reason why sugar cane 

 should not be grown much more extensively than at present 2 in 

 view of the pressure upon agricultural land in the temperate 



1 Compare Chap, v., above, in which assistance from the tropics under 

 other heads is discussed. 



1 There has, of course, been a great increase in the production of cane sugar 

 during the European War, and this increase may in a large measure become 

 permanent. 



