AGRICULTURAL SURVEY OF EUROPE: GERMANY 
101 
PRE-WAR SHEEP SITUATION 
During the 30-year period preceding the war there was a great 
decrease in the numbers of sheep held on German farms, which in 
1883 maintained 19,190,000 head, or 424 head per 1,000 inhabitants, 
as compared with 5,521,000, or 85 head per 1,000 inhabitants, in 1913. 
This great decrease is attributable directly to the expansion of wool 
and mutton production in Australia and in North and South America 
during this period. The production of cereal and other vegetable 
foodstuffs had become so profitable in Germany that increased areas 
were put into field crops, especially on the large estates in the eastern 
provinces, where the sugar-beet and potato industries grew to such 
large proportions. 
EFFECT OF VERSAILLES TREATY ON SHEEP SITUATION 
Of Germany's total number of sheep in 1913, 9.6 per cent, was found 
within the boundaries of the territories that later were ceded to 
neighboring countries under the terms of the Versailles treaty. 
Before the war, according to the enumeration of 1913, there were 
5,521,000 sheep in the Empire, or 85 head per 1,000 inhabitants. 
Of this number 4,988,000, or 86 head per 1,000 inhabitants, were 
found within the present boundaries of the Republic, so that although 
within the ceded territories, including the Saar, there were some 
533,000 head, the treaty of peace effected an actual increase in the 
density of sheep, as shown in Table 88. 
The net effect of the Versailles treaty upon the sheep situation was 
an economic gain of about 1.2 per cent. 
The statistical analysis of the pre-war sheep situation in the ceded 
districts and in the territory now composing the Republic of Germany 
appears in Table 88. 
Table 
-Sheep: Number in the districts which composed the former German 
Empire, 1913 
Districts 
Total 
number 
Per 
thousand 
inhabitants 
Germany, 1923 boundaries 
Thousands 
4,988 
2 
1 
X a ruber 
86 
Saar district: 
Rhine Province .... .."__. 
3 
Bavaria ... 
12 
Areas ceded: 
From East Prussia— 
To Memel . • 
14 
5 
7 
204 
231 
1 

5 
18 
1 
■U 
99 
To Poland. 
202 
From West Prussia— 
To Danzig Free State 
21 
To Poland 
211 
From Posen to Poland . 
119 
From Upper Silesia— 
To Poland 
1 
To Czechoslovakia ... ... ... 

From Lower Silesia to Poland __ . . ... . .. 
190 
From Schleswig-Holstein to Denmark . . 
108 
From Rhine Province to Belgium . ... 
17 
Alsace-Lorraine to France 
23 
Total for areas ceded.. . .. . 

82 
Total Empire 
5,521 
S5 
Per cent in ceded districts and" Saar 
9.7 
See Table 54 for sources. 
