25S CONSUMPTION 





rearing of animals is essential to the preservation of fertility ; could 

 the present huge dimensions of the animal-rearing industries be 

 appreciably reduced in the leading areas without risking the im- 

 pairment of soil fertility ? In answer to this question it may be 

 urged that so far as food-producing animals are maintained on 

 concentrated cereal feedstuffs, they could be dispensed with without 

 reducing in any serious degree the fertility of the world at large. 

 The effectiveness of animals as a means of maintaining or increasing 

 soil fertility lies, of course, in the return made to the soil in the form 

 of manure, and in some cases also in the form of waste slaughter- 

 house products. Obviously the degree of effectiveness depends, too, 

 upon the manner in which the fertilising elements are collected, 

 stored and returned to the land. To whatever extent avoidable waste 

 occurs in this matter, the necessity of live-stock as a means of pre- 

 serving fertility is needlessly increased. Moreover, if the fertilising 

 elements in sewage material could be economically collected and 

 returned to the soil without the admixture of deleterious substances, 

 the necessity for utilising live-stock incidentally as fertilising agents 

 would be considerably reduced in the regions of dense population. 

 The systems of sanitation in modern European towns are based 

 on the principle that sewage material is something to be got rid of 

 as cheaply and efficiently as possible, rather than that it is capable 

 of practical utilisation as a fertilising agent. Attempts have been 

 made to deal effectively with the sewage refuse of certain large 

 towns, so as to turn to use the fertilising elements contained, but 

 without any great measure of ^success. The problem,;; however, is 

 being attacked in various countries and some progress, possibly 

 great progress, is to be anticipated in the near future. 1 



The most effective means, however, of dispensing with live-stock 

 as a means of correcting loss of fertility, lies in the more extended 

 use of commercial fertilisers. 2 These can be used to supplement 

 farmyard manure, and with a judicious use of green-manure crops 

 can even replace it entirely. As the output of such fertilisers 

 increases, live-stock can, in the event of pressure, be more and 

 more dispensed with without loss of fertility in those regions that 

 are within easy reach of supplies of these substitutes. Such regions 

 are naturally the more densely populated industrial ones, and it is 

 in them accordingly that farmers will first become more independent 

 of animal industries in this respect. It is possible in the future 

 that meat production will decline relatively in regions of large 

 industrial population except so far as it is incidental to dairying, 3 

 and it is certain that dairying will be devoted in the first place 

 to the production of whole milk, which, of all foodstuffs, is 



1 See Final Report of Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal (Cd. 7821) 

 and various previous Reports. 



2 See Part I., Chap. viii. 



3 The amount of meat that may be produced incidentally to dairying can 

 be a large item. It includes beef from discarded cows, veal from the calves, 

 and even pork and baron from pigs fed in part with skim-milk and whey. 



