MA V 189 



ceeds of the ten to 1957. 175-. 6</., I should still have lost about 

 33/. net on the transaction. It is obvious that at this rate store- 

 cattle cannot be made to pay. Of course there is an explanation 

 that if there chances to be a plentiful root-crop, as was the case last 

 year, such animals rise in price. But the value of meat does not 

 rise, for whenever it reaches a certain figure, unremunerative for 

 the most part to the British grazier, dead meat pours in by the 

 thousand tons from abroad and swamps the market ; or, which is 

 worse, foreign cattle are imported by the drove, slaughtered at the 

 port of debarkation, and sold to the consumer as best British beef. 



The moral is that it does not pay to buy these lean and full- 

 grown seaborne cattle for winter fatting. I have never done so be- 

 fore, and should not have committed the mistake last autumn had 

 it not been for the accident of my finding myself unexpectedly 

 with fifty acres more land and a large quantity of roots upon my 

 hands. Far wiser is it to rear every calf that the cows drop, or, if 

 more stock is necessary, to buy young home-bred things in the 

 local market, and in our expressive Norfolk language to ' wriggle ' 

 them along till they grow into saleable beef. The food that such 

 young creatures eat, most of it even in winter being picked up on 

 the pastures, makes by comparison a small show in the farm bill, 

 and yet by degrees they grow into value. The market cattle, on 

 the contrary, have to be fed off the best, and plenty of it, if m^at 

 is to be put upon their great slab sides in sufficient quantity to 

 render them acceptable to the butcher. And here, a sadder and 

 a wiser man, I bid farewell to those ten unprofitable Irish bullocks. 



Butter is dreadfully low in price just now, eightpence or nine- 

 pence in Bungay market. My arrangement with my customers 

 is that I receive a penny a pound more than the local market 

 price. It will, I think, be admitted that this is not too much 

 when it is remembered that my butter is made from the cream of 

 pedigree cattle with the help of a separator, is never touched by 

 the hand, and in summer is stored in a refrigerator with ice. 

 Without disparagement to the produce of the district I may explain 

 that it does not receive these advantages. But at eightpence per 



