PRODUCTION IN RELATION TO CONSUMPTION 263 



been shown, the demand for meat is likely to remain very keen, 

 and the increased prices for wool and leather will stimulate all forms 

 of sheep and cattle rearing. 



III. 



The bearing of an increase throughout the world in the dairying 

 industry requires further detailed consideration in this connection. 

 It has been shown above that such an increase is in progress and is 

 likely to continue. 1 An expansion in dairying at the expense of 

 meat-production, pure and simple, means that agricultural resources 

 are being used more economically, since when the milk and the meat 

 produced are reduced to a common denominator in food values, it 

 is found that a given area of land under the same conditions of culti- 

 vation produces more human food in the shape of the former than of 

 the latter. 2 To whatever extent the dairy industry dovetails better 

 than pure meat-production into a system of mixed f arming,by utilising 

 labour more economically throughout the year and by yielding by- 

 products that can be turned into other animal foodstuffs besides milk, 

 it makes it possible to derive fuller advantage from the principle of 

 incidental production. The high labour costs involved in dairying 

 have in actual practice presented an obstacle to its more rapid 

 expansion, although, as we have seen, the introduction of machinery 

 is rapidly reducing this comparative disadvantage. Since any 

 economies in the utilisation of agricultural resources tend to increase 

 the residue available for the production of meat, an extension of 

 dairying is, on the whole, favourable to the latter, though directly 

 and at first sight unfavourable. It is to be observed, however, 

 that milk tends to be regarded as more fixed than meat in the 

 ordinary dietary, and that if population begins to press upon agri- 

 cultural lesources, milk production is apt to suffer less than meat 

 production. 3 



The dairy industry, however, has in another way a directly 

 favourable influence upon meat production. Reference has been 

 made (see p. 189, above) to the fact that a certain amount of meat 

 results as a by-product of the dairying industry in the form of cows 

 discarded because of age, or because of unprofitableness. In prac- 

 tice dairying results in extensive meat production incidentally, 

 since every cow is ultimately converted into beef ; the only real 

 differences between this form of meat production and the direct 

 form are that the period of maturity is longer and the meat often 

 of poorer quality. The progress of scientific dairying may furnish 

 a greater proportionate supply of meat from this source. 4 More- 



1 See Part II., Chap. ii. 



2 See (Cd. 8421), p. 27, also p. 211, above, Note 2 



See U.S. Dept. Agric. Bureau of Crop Estimates, Kept. 109, p. 23. 



* The more scientific and intelligent become the methods of the dairy 



industry, the greater in all likelihood will be the proportion of cows annually 



turned over to slaughter, since unprofitable animals will be more rigorously 



discarded. According to the results of various investigations an appreciable 



