12 
BULLETIN 1399, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF A.GRICULTUBE 
p. 67), while the area planted to fodder roots has expanded greatly 
in order to increase animal production through the feeding as far as 
possible of home-grown crops. But these home-grown feeding stuffs 
are insufficient, more particularly since the abandonment of cereal 
acreage has cut down straw supplies enormously. 
Authorities estimate that before the war fully 40 per cent of 
Germany's milk and butter production was based upon the use of 
foreign barley, oil cake, and other concentrates, importations of 
which averaged about 8,000,000 short tons in 1912 and 1913. Since 
the war Germany has been unable to import more than 25 to 30 per 
cent of the quantities of these foreign feeding stuffs that had been 
imported before the war. Meat and animal-fat production have been 
correspondingly curt ailed. 
One of the factors with which German meat producers may have to 
reckon is the development of the meat industry in the Argentine. 
Before the war Germany imported an average of 1,764 pounds of 
frozen beef from Argentina: in 1921-22, 5,600,000 pounds; in 1922-23, 
23,400,000 pounds; in 1923-24, 115,700,000 pounds. Although this 
importation of the last fiscal year is only about 6 to 7 per cent of the 
total beef and veal production of the calendar year 1924, the fact that 
the German people are eating greater quantities of cheap frozen beef 
than formerly is significant and may prove a factor to be taken into 
serious consideration. 
The increased buying ability of the city dwellers during the past 
year in Germany is reflected in the increased importations of butter, 
which were 2,000,000 pounds in 1922, 3,000,000 pounds in 1923, and 
118,000,000 pounds in 1924, of which Denmark supplied nearly 
59,000,000 pounds, withdrawing this quantity from the offerings she 
would otherwise have made on the United States markets. 
Domestically produced fats in Germany are chiefly of animal origin, 
although a relatively small quantity of vegetable oil is produced from 
domestic seed. A very large quantity of vegetable fats and oils is 
imported or produced from imported oil-bearing materials. The oil 
crushers and margarine manufacturing industries were both seriously 
disorganized in 1923, but recovered toward the end of the year and 
handled, including linseed, about 600,000 short tons of imported oil- 
seeds, while in 1924 they crushed fully 800,000 short tons of imported 
seeds, as compared w T ith 1,900,000 short tons in 1913. 
Before the war the territories now composing the Republic of 
Germany produced nearly two-thirds of the total requirements of 
fats and oils. Domestic supplies in 1912 were about 2,200,000,000 
pounds, or 37.9 pounds per capita, of which 97.3 per cent were 
animal fats. Probably not more than 25 per cent of the animal 
fats were actually rendered, the remainder being sold with the meat. 
Of the supplies imported, practically 57 per cent were in the form of 
vegetable-oil materials. The remainder consisted of animal and 
fish fats, of which lard imported from the United States was an 
important item. 
With the outbreak of the war there was a substantial reduction 
in available supplies of fats, and a shortage has prevailed ever since. 
The best available data indicate that for the year 1921, the total 
per capita supply of Cats was 74 per cent of the supply in 1912 and 
that dining 1922 it rose to 7(> per cent but in 1923 .declined to about 
69 per cent. The decrease in 1923 is almost entirely due to smaller 
