204 CONSUMPTION 



the surplus-producing countries. Large quantities of other extra 

 edible parts have in recent years been consigned from North and 

 South America to the United Kingdom, where, as in other parts 

 of Europe, they are consumed largely by the poorer classes of the 

 population. 1 On the whole, however, there appears to be a con- 

 siderable waste of extra edible parts in the more distant surplus- 

 producing countries, owing to the absence of markets for their 

 disposal. 



The statistics of dressed weight meat consumption, apparently, 

 do not include anything but the flesh of cattle and calves, sheep and 

 lambs and goats. Horseflesh and poultry are therefore excluded, 

 so also are rabbits and game. The additions to the meat supplies 

 from these iwo sources vary greatly from one country to another. 

 There is an enormous output of poultry meat in the great 

 surplus-producing cereal regions of North America and Russia; 

 while the great meat-producing regions of the Southern Hemisphere 

 produce comparatively small numbers of poultry. Domesticated 

 rabbits are an important article of food in Belgium, and rabbits 

 of all kinds are probably consumed in greater per capita quantities 

 in Europe than in the newer countries where wild rabbits, though 

 often extraordinarily numerous, are apt to be despised as an article 

 of food. The resources in game 2 available in different countries 

 vary largely with the area of forested and otherwise unoccupied 

 land. Such resources tend to be greater in the newer countries 

 for obvious reasons, but prairie lands and open plains in any case 

 soon become depleted of game. Certain parts of Europe, however, 

 owing to natural or to artificial conditions are rich in game of 

 special kinds. With the increase in population and the progress 

 of settlement and cultivation the supplies of game available for 

 consumption in various countries are declining, and as the rearing 

 of game is scarcely adapted to intensive methods of production, 

 it 'appears likely that game will diminish further as an item in the 

 food supplies of meat-consuming countries. 



Owing to the fact that only a small percentage of the total game 

 meat passes through the ordinary market channels in most coun- 

 tries, it is difficult to estimate the quantities consumed per capita. 

 In general, it may be said that game, like poultry, is consumed as 

 an additional form of meat mainly by the wealthier classes, at any 

 rate, in the countries of Europe, just as extra edible parts of meat- 

 producing animals are consumed as a substitute for dressed meat 

 by the poorer classes. It is obvious that the per capita consump- 

 tion of all forms of meat, including extra, edible parts, poultry and 

 game, is considerably greater in most countries than that of dressed 



1 For some account of the British import trade in edible offals, see Cd. 2644 

 QQ. 3949-54. 



2 Under this head are included various species of wild birds, deer, wild pig, 

 hares, and the various flesh-yielding animals peculiar to different countries 

 such as the kangaroo of Australia, the moose of Canada, and the antelope of 

 South Africa. 



