PRODUCTION IN RELATION TO CONSUMPTION 271 



ferences, to prejudice and to the force of fixed habits, it will be seen 

 that the demand of consumers for the less costly supplies of con- 

 centrated foodstuffs, tend to favour changes in production from 

 the extensive to the intensive forms of agriculture and animal 

 husbandry, that is, from single-purpose to incidental production ; 

 it will favour the production of milk rather than beef, of cheese 

 rather than butter, of veal rather than steer-beef, of pig-meat and 

 poultry and eggs rather than mutton or than beef except from dis- 

 carded dairy cows ; on the production side, therefore, it will favour 

 specialisation in the smaller animals, sheep excepted. The demand 

 for cheap nourishment and the economies of production react upon 

 each other, so that neither is wholly the cause of the other. The 

 psychology of consumption is a. subject that opens up problems in 

 relation to production which remain to be investigated. We may 

 close this section by drawing attention to one possible reaction 

 under this head : if a much smaller proportion of the milk produced 

 by dairy cattle were to be used for making butter than at present, 

 and the proportion of prime pig-meat in the total supplies of that 

 article became thereby reduced, to what extent would the present 

 growing demand for pig-meat be checked among consumers through- 

 out the world ? 



VI. 



In addition to favouring economies in production any notice- 

 able shortage of animal foodstuffs in relation to effective demand 

 would in a positive way stimulate the whole agricultural industry. 

 More capital and labour, so far as they are available, would be 

 employed in the production of foodstuffs in the occupied regions 

 and the development of the outlying parts of the temperate regions, 

 and of the tropical highlands would be hastened. The demand for 

 animal foodstuffs is likely, in fact, to be keen in relation to the sup- 

 plies available in the near future unless the purchasing power of 

 consumers suffers appreciable decline, and greater attention is 

 therefore likely to be given to certain special developments that 

 favour the maximum output. Public interest in the methods of 

 agricultural production has been wanting in a number of countries 

 during the lact two or three decades owing to the apparent abund- 

 ance of foodstuffs, but any shortage of animal foodstuffs will tend 

 to arouse public interest and cause State action to be directed to 

 the control of the methods emp^^ed, and may even cause a greater 

 proportion of the better brains in each country to be devoted to 

 agriculture and to the problems of agricultural production. Already 

 steps have been taken by the American Government towards the 

 control and the restoration of the Western Range pastures, for 

 which a constructive policy has been outlined. 1 Similar advances 

 are likely to be made in the future in other countries where pro- 



1 For fuller information concerning the Range Lands of the United States 

 with reference to their stock-carrying capacity, see the following publications 

 of U.S. Dept. of Agriculture: Yearbook of Agriculture, 1914, pp. 15-17 

 and 66-88; Bulletins, 367 and 34 ; Bureau of Crop Estimates, Report 110. 



