1^ 



The Country Gaitkmans Magazine 



liut although, in the al)sence of complete agricul- 

 tural statistics, all the evidence is in favour of a great 

 increase in the meat-producing powers of this coun- 

 try, founded on the increased use of artificial manures, 

 still the fact remains that the supply is not equal to the 

 demand created by increased population, and still 

 more by the improved condition of a population 

 that expects to eat fresh meat where their fathers, 

 more poorly clad, were compelled to be contented 

 with a little bacon, or a little of the salt beef of a worn- 

 out dairy cow. We are constantly, so far as 

 I^ondon and the great towns of England are con- 



crossed with shorthorns. The year before the cattle- 

 plague one English cattle salesman remitted £\o,QOO 

 to France, the purchase-money of fat bullocks for one 

 season. Sheep came to us from Germany and Holstein 

 in enormously increasing numbers ; many merinoes, 

 which furnish a large quantity of small tough joints at 

 a very low price. The North Gennan exporters, 

 whose centre is Hamburg, send thousands of excel- 

 lent animals called Dutch sheep, which are crosses 

 from good English Leicester and Cotswold rams. 

 Flocks of pure and crosses of Do\\nis are also kept 

 in the largest towns in sandy Prussia. It not unfre- 



cerned, largely dependent on the foreigner. Our first quently happens that one-third of the live stock ex- 

 hibited in the metropolitan market is foreign. At the 

 time the cattle plague broke out, railways having been 

 opened up to Eastern Europe, we had tapped the grassy 

 plains of Poland and Hungary, and had even one 

 importation from Russia. Our salesmen were in 

 communication with the cattle dealers in Berlin and 

 Vienna, and the grey cattle with straight long 



foreign supply was drawn from Northern Europe, 

 from parts of Denmark, from Germany, and from 

 Holland. Spain and Portugal sent and send for a 

 limited number of fat bullocks, magnificent animals, 

 dove-coloured, meek-eyed, with enormous branching 

 horns — chiefly working bullocks, fatted on Indian 

 com, producing " meat mottled like marble, and 



nearly as hard," cheap, nutritious, and tongh, but of horns, which are supposed to be the descendants of 



great value for soup and stews, if only our labourers' Oriental cattle brought by the first Tartar invasion into 



wives knew how to cook. Europe, were to be seen in the streets of London. 



About two years ago the French began to ship These were, no doubt, directly or indirectly, the cause 



a number of their best oxen to us, chiefly Normands of all our woes. 



The Saturday R.vu-to of the 1 8th May says :— 

 "The publication of the Agricultural Returns for 

 Great Britain has been followed by a commentary 

 upon them, prepared by Mr Caird, and read by him 

 to the Statistical Society. Mr Caird did well to record 

 his thankfulness ' that in the House of Commons he 

 was the instrument of carrying a resolution which 

 led to the collection of the returns ; ' but he went be- 

 yond what the facts warrant when he proceeded to the 

 assertion ' that the I'eturns have given us the power of 

 answering with accuracy and in good time the question 

 whence the 30,000,000 of people who live within the 

 narrow limits of the British islands shall year by year 

 be provided with their daily bread.' We have re- 

 cently pointed out and complained that the returns 

 just stop short of giving the materials that would 

 enable the public to answer for themselves this annu- 

 ally recurring and most important question. We may 

 be permitted to recapitulate the substance of what we 

 have on a previous occasion said, which was, that so 

 far as the returns go, the information afforded is un- 

 doubtedly ample, but that it is necessary that the 

 future returns should include accounts of what crops 

 have actually been grown from year to year. A slight 

 increase of labour and expense would make the returns 

 complete in this respect, and we urged that, to make 

 them useful, the additional trouble ought not to be 

 spared. For although, as Mr Caird says, " Govern- 

 ment may very well leave all parties interested to as- 

 certain for themselves the relative yield of each harvest, 

 and to act as each sees fit on his own sources of infor- 

 mation," yet it is clear that the public ought to be 



sup]Dlied with the materials which are the basis of each 

 annual calculation — namely, accounts shewing v.-hat is 

 actually an average crop of wheat in the United King- 

 dom. When that is known, the surplus or deficiency 

 of any harvest can be estimated correctly enough im- 

 mediately after harvest time. Mr Caird tells the Sta- 

 tistical Society that he differed from such authorities 

 on the subject as Mr Jacob, Mr Took, Mr Newmarch, 

 and Mr M'CuUoch, when, as Times' Commis- 

 sioner, he put forth an estimate of an average crop in 

 1850. He still thinks that his estimate was correct, and, 

 subject to 'careful inquiry and observation' since made, 

 he still puts down a lower figure as the limit of an 

 average crop of wheat per acre than we think would 

 be found to be correct if extensive inquiry were made. 

 Such inquiries on a narrow scale, limited by the means 

 at the disposal of private 'parties interested,' have 

 been undertaken, and, so far as we have been able to 

 ascertain them, the results go to shew that, in estimat- 

 ing an average crop of wheat in England to be 28 

 bushels per acre, Mr Caird is below the mark. We 

 believe that only one public journal. The Farmer, has 

 obtained from its correspondents their estimates of the 

 crops, in the form of so many bushels of corn or so 

 many tons of roots, per acre ; in the other agricultural 

 journals in which crop reports are published, the esti- 

 mates of quantity are made with reference to that un- 

 known quantity, an 'average crop,' and are described 

 as being less or more below or above. The informa- 

 tion given by The Farmer has also the merit of being 

 classified, not, as is usual, by counties, but according 

 to the character of the soil or geological formation. 



