436 



The Coimtry Gentleman s Magazine 



%\it Jfarm. 



IMPORT AND EXPORT OF AGRICULTURAL COMMODITIES. 



THE Trade and Navigation Accounts 

 for the month and ten months ended 

 October of this year have just been issued. 

 Recent discussions about tenant-right and 

 unexhausted improvements shew that these 

 dry figures are assuming an interest which to 

 many farmers they never possessed before. 

 We have, therefore, all the greater pleasure 

 in summarizing them — in giving in as readable 

 a form as possible the information which 

 these statistics supply with reference to 

 articles and commodities, the special products 

 of agricultural- industry. 



Following the alphabetical arrangement of 

 the tables, we find that alike on the month 

 and ten months there has been a very great 

 decrease in the importation of foreign cattle. 

 Taking oxen, bulls, and cows together, we 

 notice that in the ten months we imported only 

 127.340 animals, as against 182,568. The 

 amount of money disbursed this year up to 

 the end of the month noted was ;Q'2,zZZi1S9i 

 ■up to the end of last October it exceeded 

 ;^3, 000,000. In the month the decrease 

 was more marked, the number of bulls and 

 cows received amounting to only 15,333 j ii^ 

 the October of 1871 no fewer than 25,827 

 were landed. Of the latter number 10,648 

 were cows ; in the past month of this year 

 only 2224 A\ere females, a gratifying fact, as 

 it is through them, as a rule, that contagious 

 diseases are propagated in this country. 

 Calves came in fewer numbers in both 

 periods. Sheep and lambs decreased 

 from 792,332 to 722,179 in the course 

 of the ten months, but the extra 

 price paid this year raised the amount 

 disbursed to within ,-/^58,6S7 of that expen- 

 ded for the much larger number last year ; 

 the totals being for this year ;^i,465,i47, 

 as against ^1,523,834 in the corresponding 



period of last year. The imports of the 

 porcine race are growing so " small by de- 

 grees and beautifully less," that on first sight 

 it would seem no extravagant supposition to 

 a foreigner that Englishmen were rapidly 

 adopting the Jewish faith, did not the in- 

 creased imports of bacon stagger the belief. 

 The number of swine received in the month 

 was only 18S8 as against 9193, and in the 

 ten months 14,890 to contrast with 80,574. 

 Of bacon, however, we received in the ten 

 months 1,627,866 cwt. at a cost of 

 ;^3j35o>746, as against 804,173 cwt. at a 

 cost of ^^2,037,629. It will be noticed 

 from these figures that bacon was cheaper 

 this year than last. Salted beef wc got in 

 smaller quantities, the sum paid in the ten 

 months for it being ;^275,8o9, to compare 

 with p/^47 2,903. For fresh or slightly salted 

 beef in the ten months _2{^72,526 was paid as 

 against ^34,916 in the corresponding term 

 of 1871. We received more than three 

 times the quantity of hams this year than 

 we did last, but did not pay for them three 

 times the amount of money, the sum being 

 343,096 to compare with ^139,716. For 

 meat described in the returns as " unenume- 

 rated" we paid ^^Tr 1,010, and for preserved 

 meat _jr704.976, which was nearly ^2^200,000 

 more than last. For pork, fresh and salt, 

 we disbursed ^388,894 which was about 

 ^150,000 less than last year. Poultry and 

 game came in larger quantities. The total 

 amount we expended up to the end of 

 October this year, upon the various kinds of 

 animal food enumerated, was ;^9,333,ioi, 

 a sum surely too large for a country with 

 such capabilities of meat production as our 

 own has with proper security for capital ex- 

 pended on the land. 



For dairy produce we this year, so far as it 



