22 



Tlie Country Gentlemaiis Magazine 



Ultt Jfarm. 



IMPORT AND EXPORT OF AGRICULTURAL COMMODITIES. 



IN the five months of the year that have 

 passed, we have to note a considerable 

 falUng off in cattle. In the month, also, the 

 Returns — taking oxen, bulls, and cows in the 

 aggregate — shew that the number is but 9972, 

 as against 18,311 in May of the previous 

 year, when our exports were large, and 12,338 

 in May of 1870. 



This question of the foreign cattle trade is 

 becoming one fraught with great interest to 

 farmers and consumers of stock. Our own 

 home supplies are lessening ; the prices of 

 meat are daily becoming higher ; complaints 

 are rife that meat is too dear, and that 

 neither salesmen, butchers, nor buyers can 

 make much profit by sales and purchases. 

 It may seem strange, but it is a fact, that the 

 cheaper the commodity the greater the gain. 

 Sir Robert Peel, with that sagacity which be- 

 longs only to a few men, though he stood 

 long against Free Trade, saw his error, and 

 became, after the potato failure, the success- 

 ful apostle of the principle he had contended 

 against ; and the most inveterate of his op- 

 ponents then, will now, we think, admit that 

 although he brought in cheap wheat he there- 

 by improved British farming, and put in 

 rather than took out of the pockets of the 

 cultivators of the soil. Farmers, as a rule, 

 are better off than when there was a pro- 

 hibitory duty upon the introduction of corn 

 from foreign countries, and have benefited, 

 as well as the artizan, by " the big loaf" 

 We are not arguing that all restrictions should 

 be taken off the introduction of foreign stock 

 into this country. We are fully persuaded 

 that a vast amount of harm has been done 

 to native herds by the injudicious impor- 

 tation of cattle from abroad. At the same 

 time we are not quite assured that all the 



diseases which stock are heir to, and which 

 have been attributed to contamination from 

 interlopers, have really been consigned to us 

 from Russian Steppes, or from the flat lands 

 of Holland. 



The uncleanly character of London and 

 other dairies, the confined limits of the sheds, 

 and the wretched nature of the ventilation, 

 have not a little to do with that dire disease 

 pleuro-pneumonia. It is not, however, our 

 purpose now to trace the origin of the con- 

 tagious diseases from which stock sufter, but 

 in this passing way to indicate an opinion 

 that every encouragement should be given to 

 the importation of foreign stock, consistent 

 with safety to our own domestic animals. 

 This, it is thought by not a few people, is not 

 done ; hence the decline, it is alleged, in cattle 

 from the Continent. A representation on 

 this subject we understand is again to be 

 made to Mr Forster, whose patience in listen- 

 ing to the representation about the bovine 

 and ovine races, must be something like that 

 which is attributed to Job when he lost all 

 his cattle. 



While, however, the imports of cattle have 

 been falling off, an increase is noticeable in 

 the receipts of sheep for the five months, to 

 the extent of 50,000 head ; but in the month, 

 although at this season of the year we might 

 have expected an increase, there is a faUing 

 off of no less than 48,000, or a-third of the 

 imports compared with those in May 187 1. 

 The total number of sheep and lambs we re- 

 ceived up to the end of May was 337,435r 

 and up to the same period of last year, 

 287,932. In the month the numbers were 

 76,486, to set against 124,515 in the corre- 

 sponding month of last year. 



There is no sale for swine in the London 



