stopped, because of her own shortage, and
because much of what she has goes to Germany.

The European herds have been cut down. Every one of the warring
countries has fewer meat animals now than before the war. There were
roughly 100,000,000 animals less in Europe at the end of 1917 than
in 1914. Many of those left are in very poor condition, so that the
shortage is even more serious than is indicated by the falling off in
numbers.

Belgium, Serbia, and Roumania are in the worst condition. Practically
all the animals in those countries have been killed or confiscated by
the invading German and Austrian armies. This is one cause of their
terrible famine conditions.

The United Kingdom, France, and Italy have also lost seriously. France
is the greatest loser of the three, with more than one-fifth of her
herds gone. The enemy has driven off large numbers of her cattle. She,
like the others, is in difficulty not only for meat, but for milk.
Her situation is complicated by the fact that she has no great
cold-storage plants like ours, and so must get meat-supplies at
frequent intervals.

Before the war Germany was much better prepared than the Allies in
that she had many more animals in proportion to her population than
they. But she was more dependent upon imports of feed, and as her
commerce has been cut off, she has had to kill her animals faster.
Counting up all her animals in terms of cattle according to the amount
of meat they would yield, shows a loss of over one-third. For Austria,
there are no available figures, but her decrease has probably been
larger than Germany's.

Meat shortage is not a problem by itself, but is closely connected
with the shortage of available grain. When cereals are short, they
must be fed to human beings rather than to animals. Feeding grain to
animals and then eating the animals is not nearly so economical as
eating grain directly. For example, when grain is fed to a cow, only
31/2 per cent of the energy of the grain is turned into meat or fat,
and 96 per cent is burned up by the cow in its own daily living. When
a man eats the grain directly, he uses at least 85 per cent of its
energy. Thus 811/2 per cent more of the grain is actually used for human
food. So Europe to-day has to sacrifice her herds, and uses grain for
bread instead of turning it into meat.

Alongside this shortage has come an increased demand for meat for the
great armies. The soldier's ration always contains more m