SOME EFFECTS OF THE WAR 311 



Western Europe. In the return to normal conditions after the 

 war, the most rapid recovery is likely to take place in pigs, which 

 multiply rapidly, and the slowest in cattle for the reverse reason. 

 It is to be feared, also, that in Europe a considerable number of 

 dairy cattle have been slaughtered for meat, and if this is the case, 

 several years must elapse before the herds of dairy cows in that 

 continent reach their pre-war strength. There may accordingly 

 be a corresponding shortage of dairy produce for some time. 



On the other hand, the production of foodstuffs, more especially 

 plant foodstuffs, in some populous European countries has been 

 stimulated through high prices and the virtual protection that 

 war conditions have imposed, as well as through efforts made by 

 the various belligerent Governments to secure the maximum 

 output of foodstuffs from their respective home resources. In 

 some cases the increased production may have been obtained at 

 the expense of the accumulated fertility of the soil, but more 

 generally the method employed has been to use land more for food 

 crops and less for the maintenance of animals. On the whole, there 

 have been developments in organisation and in methods, in the 

 utilisation of labour-saving machinery and in the training of female 

 labour for the lighter operations, that will favour increased agri- 

 cultural production in the future. This condition is, of course, 

 vital for the re-establishment and further progress of animal in- 

 dustries. The shortage of fertilisers in certain countries during 

 the war period (rendered more acute owing to the depletion of the 

 live-stock) may have caused some impoverishment of soil fertility. 

 However, enormous strides have been made in the output of syn- 

 thetic nitrates for war purposes, 1 and these, if they continue to be 

 produced, will be available for use as fertilisers when hostilities 

 cease. If they can be produced cheaply, the result will be a great 

 increase in agricultural production, not only in Europe, but through- 

 out the civilised world. The most serious shortage of fertilisers 

 has probably occurred in potash compounds which, when the stocks 

 on hand became exhausted, have scarcely been obtainable for 

 agricultural purposes in countries at war with Germany or cut 

 off from it by the sea-blockade. On the whole, the impoverishment 

 of agricultural land through the lack of commerical fertilisers is 

 not very serious in the long run, and can probably be made good 

 more or less rapidly at the close of the war. During the period of 

 the war the countries of Europe have been more self-sufficing in 

 the matter of foodstuffs than before it, partly by utilising the stored- 

 up fertility of their soils, but mainly through a decreased con- 

 sumption of animal foodstuffs by the civil populations. 



In Europe and North America, in each of which continents the 

 total production of animal foodstuffs is much greater than it is 

 in any other continent, 2 the dependence of animal industries upon 



1 See Part I., Chap viii., p. 145. 



2 Though Europe as a whole is a deficiency region in animal foodstuffs 

 and North America has now a smaller surplus than either South America 



