Page:Economic Development in Denmark Before and During the World War.djvu/85

Rh annual export of 40,000 hogs at the close of the sixties, the number increased to about 280,000 during the next fifteen years. When Germany, in 1887, stopped importing living swine, Denmark began to do her own slaughtering, and year by year her exports of bacon and ham steadily increased, until at the opening of the new century they amounted to 70,000,000 kilos per annum. Butter and bacon are now the chief exports of Denmark.

If we consider the areas under cultivation, we find corresponding facts. In 1871 the area planted to fodder-plants was between 5,000 and 6,000 ha (one ha is about 2.5 acres). Ten years later it was three times as large, and in 1901 it had grown to 142,000. In the present century this figure has been doubled. During the same period the raising of live-stock has undergone a remarkable change. In the sixties the breeding of sheep reached its maximum; in 1866 there were in all 1,900,000 sheep in the country, whereas at the outbreak of the World War there were only 500,000. Intensive agriculture leaves no room for sheep. On the other hand, the number of cattle increased from 1,200,000 in 1866 to 2,500,000 in 1914. But the increase in the number of hogs has been enormous; in 1866 there were 400,000 hogs in the country; in 1900, 1,500,000; and in 1914, 2,500,000. During the same time, moreover, the breed had greatly improved, and there is therefore a greater profit per head. Nor is it not only large farms that have profited by the change. The small holdings are more intensively cultivated than the large ones, so that in 1909 the number of hogs on holdings of a few hectares was three times as great, in proportion to the area, as on holdings of from thirty to sixty hectares.

Development of the Co-operative Dairies

An important part in these changes has been played by the co-operative movement in Danish agriculture. In the middle of the nineteenth century the quality of Danish butter was generally poor. That made by the peasants was very coarse, and the only fairly good butter was that produced on large 