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The increase in the demand for butchers’ meat has been greater than 
the increase of population. The proportion of persons consuming ani- 
mal food has increased 50 per cent. The question has been raised 
whether this increase has not been excessive and abnormal, greater than 
the healthy subsistence of the population demands. But in spite of 
such questions, there is more likelihood of an increase than of a falling 
off in the rate of consumption. 
The United Kingdom, within the last three or four years, has imported 
an immense amount of bacon and hams, which imports alone constitute 
14 per cent. of the annual meat-consumption of the British people. 
Excluding these two items, the live cattle, sheep, and swine, together 
with what are technically called “ pork” and “ beef,” add only 64 per 
cent. to the home product. Estimating that one-fourth of the cattle of 
the British isles are annually slaughtered, and the average weight at 6 
ewt. 1 qr., the aggregate would include 2,531,201 animals and 15,820,006 
ewt. of beef. Supposing that five-twelfths of the sheep are annually 
brought to the knife, the total number of these animals slaughtered would | 
_ be 13,922,624, which, at an average of 70 pounds per head, would yield 
8,701,640 cwt. of mutton. Estimating the number of swine killed 
annually as equal to that of the census, and that these average 10 stone, 
the result will be 4,348,941 ewt. of pork. The grand total of beef, mut- 
ton, and pork, of home production, is 28,870,587 ewt., or 3,233,505,744 
pounds. 
Of cattle, including all grades, from calf to bulls and oxen, 263,698 
were imported during 1875, almost entirely for direct consumption. 
Allowing 44 cwt. per head as their average weight, they would yield 
1,186,641 cwt. of beef. Of sheep, 977,863 were imported, averaging, 
probably, 13 pounds per quarter, and yielding 454,007 ewt. of mutton. 
Finally, 71,928 live swine yielded about 1 cwt. each, making 1,712,576 
ewt., or 191,808,512 pounds of fresh meat from imported animals. 
The foreign imports of dead meat are given at 2,898,293 cwt. of 
bacon, hams, and “pork,” and 216,516 ewt. of beef; total, 3,114,809 
ewt., or 348,858,608 pounds. The grand total of meat-consumption, 
domestic and foreign, is 3,774,172,864, or 114 pounds per capita of the 
population, estimated at 33,000,000. The portion imported is thus a 
little less than 15 per cent. Adding the fish, poultry, and wild game 
annually marketed, the British people must be considered as large meat 
consumers. 
TEN YEARS OF FRENCH AGRICULTURE.—A French agricultural jour- 
nalist, reviewing the progress of farming in France during the past ten 
years, finds considerable progress in co-operative effort among the 
farmers, and a gratifying development of individual character and in- 
telligence in certain quarters, but too much reliance is still placed upon 
the initiative and co-operation of the government in enterprises that 
properly belong to individual or associated effort. Too much of what was 
graphically ealled “ official agriculture” still subsists. The reform by 
which this incubus is to be dispelled is more radical and tedious than 
many sanguine Frenchmen are disposed to believe. 
Ten years ago the government of Napoleon III prosecuted an inquiry 
into the causes of agricultural crises, the fluctuating yields of the dif- 
ferent crops, the steady increase of wages, rents, and taxes, and an at- 
tempt was made to devise some method of relieving these difficulties. 
The facts elicited pointed to the commercial treaties with foreign pow- 
ers and to a defective internal administration, involving an ill-distributed 
and oppressive taxation, a terrific waste and misdirection of funds in 
