THE RATE OF CONSUMPTION 217 



poultry be taken- as one year and the average weight as 3 IDS., the 

 total weight of poultry meat would be about 06 million Ibs. per 

 annum; and if ten eggs weigh on an average 1 lb., the egg pro- 

 duction would be equal to 148 million Ibs. The total \\eight of 

 poultry, meat and eggs would therefore be nearly 250 million Ibs. 

 of highly nutritious food. Now in 1911 the total weight of the 

 cheese output of Canada was only 201-3 million Ibs., or about 

 I of the weight of poultry products. Yet Canada in 1911 was the 

 leading cheese-exporting country of the world. Concerning the 

 production of poultry and eggs in the United States some striking 

 facts are also available. In a recent year the total output was 

 estimated at .150 million in value. 1 In 1907 the United States 

 Secretary of Agriculture stated that the poultry products were 

 worth more than the wheat. 2 The magnitude of poultry and egg 

 production in China and in Russia has already been referred to in 

 Chap. IV. of Part I., above. 



A dense agricultural population is a favourable condition for 

 poultry-i earing industries. The most important regions are 

 Central and Eastern North America, Western and Eastern Europe, 

 with Western Siberia and China. Outside these regions poultry 

 production has not risen to any importance beyond supplying 

 the limited local consumption. The temperate regions of the 

 Southern Hemisphere, owing probably to the great abundance of 

 meat, have hitherto generally neglected this branch of farming. 

 Tropical countries, generally speaking, are unfavourable to domestic 

 breeds of poultry and the methods employed by the natives are 

 generally primitive. In any case, as was noticed in the Introductory 

 Chapter of Part I., the peoples of the tropical regions do not feel 

 so keenly the need for animal foodstuffs in this or in other forms. 



Europe probably has more poultry than any other single con- 

 tinent. In many parts of Europe the conditions are highly favour- 

 able ; there is an abundance of cheap local or imported grain ; 

 the average size of the holdings is medium or small ; and there is 

 also plenty of cheap peasant labour, especially that of vvomen, 

 to give the necessary care and attention. On many farms poultry 

 with eggs supply the most important part of the animal foodstuffs 

 consumed by the occupiers and their families, especially in the 

 poorer parts from Central to Eastern Europe. Relatively to the 

 population poultry raising has declined in Great Britain and 

 Germany owing to the gathering of huge masses of population in 

 towns where the industry is nearly impossible, and to the with- 

 drawal from the country districts of large quantities of cheap labour 

 formerly available for the detailed work required by this industry. 



With the growth of co-operation and the spread of technical 



1 U S. Dept. Agric., Animal Industry Report, 1911, p. 247. 



2 Cf. A. P. Brigham, Commercial Geography, 1911, p. 148 : " Poultry pro- 

 duce is one of the four or five most important sources of agricultural wealth 

 in the United States. . . . Poultry and eggs formed in 1899 one-sixth of all 

 the products of animal origin." 



