30 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



every head of population, and about three head of cattle to 

 every four of population; while, in Great Britain and Ire- 

 land, there are about three-fourths of a cultivated acre to 

 every person, and only one head of cattle to every three 

 inhabitants ; or, as put in another form, in the United States 

 there are for every hundred persons seventy-five head of cat- 

 tle, and these have five thousand acres of land. Some idea 

 may be formed by this, of the capacity of this country for 

 the production of animal food. 



In a recent publication I saw the following statement : 

 Great Britain numbers thirty-three million in population, of 

 whom, it is officially, stated eighteen million can be sustained 

 on food grown at home, leaving fifteen million to be supplied 

 from foreign sources. Statistics show that the United King- 

 dom annually imports a hundred million dollars in value of 

 food, thirty-five million dollars of which is for live animals. 



The British Isles contain now six million cattle, twenty- 

 eight million sheep, two million five hundred thousand pigs, 

 or less than one-sixth of a steer, one-twelfth of a pig, and 

 less than one sheep, to each head of population ; and this for 

 a people who are fast increasing their average consumption 

 of meat. 



The question naturally arises, From whence are they to be 

 supplied ? France, it is found, is hardly able to supply her- 

 self with animal food : in fact, it is stated that the price of 

 meat was higher in Paris than in London and in correspond- 

 ing markets. The writer to whom I have alluded, the 

 British secretary of legation, says that "the United States 

 is destined to supply England with her main supplies of 

 food," since he finds it the very nature of American enter- 

 prise to push a trade which affords a profit, and to resort to 

 all manner of cheapening processes and methods to make 

 it more profitable, and that this great traffic in cattle is to 

 be one of permanence and profit. 



I read some months ago, in one of the leading agricultural 

 journals of the State, a paper upon one of the industries of 

 the country, which, as it treats upon one of the products 

 arising from the "Husbandry of Neat-Stock," and one in 

 which every farmer is more or less interested, I cannot 

 forbear giving a few extracts. It was written by Andrew J. 

 Lawson, and was about " Hides," transactions in which have 



