THE BACOX CURING INDUSTRY. 251 



."oo.ooo to 725,000 pigs, and employ from 500 to ',50 hands exclusive of the 

 clerical staffs. In Ireland, not nicluding a number of small curers, who kill 

 merely to supp!)' a limited local trade, there are 20 factories, being all either 

 Limited Liability Companies or private concerns except one started a short 

 time ago in Tralee in the English Co-operative Wholesale Society. These 

 factories deal annually with about 850,000 pigs, and employ over 1,600 

 hands, not including the clerical staffs. 



The greater number of hands employed in Ireland is accounted for by the 

 number of minor industries carried on in connection with the bacon factories 

 in this country, which either do not exist or exist only to a very small extent 

 in Denmark. Ihe average number of pigs produced in Ireland for the 

 twenty years ending 1900 was 1,322,480. while in 1901 the number fell 

 to 1,219,135, being a reduction of 103,345. During this period the shipping 

 of pigs alive to Great Britain has increased rapidly, the average number 

 shipped during the first five years being 440,432, the second five years 

 504,778. the third 518,659, and the fourth 659,687. In 1900 there were 

 shipped 715,202, but last year the number fell to 596,129. Looking back 

 a couple of years it would at the first glance appear that this trade depends 

 to a great extent on the supply of pigs in Great Britain, as we find that the 

 decrease there under the average for the 20 years was 313,921 for the past 

 two years, while for the same period the increase in the shipping trade over 

 the average was 320,673. Ireland during those two years was 157,496 short 

 of its normal supply, which with the increased shipping meant that there 

 were over 478,000 less to be turned into Irish bacon. But going back 

 further, say five years, we find that the total number shipped over the 

 average is more than twice as great as the total shortage under the average 

 supply in Great Britain during the same time. It is, therefore, apparent that 

 serious inroads are being made into the Irish curers' supplies of raw material. 

 The killings in .'reland increased steadily from 1880 to 1890, the province of 

 Munster alone accounting for 787,223 pigs in 1890, as against 486,400 

 last year. 



Much of the 'ncrease in the shipping of pigs from Ireland may have been 

 due to the very severe restrictions imposed in England on the movements 

 of swine from one district to another in the effort to stamp out swine fever 

 there. In Ireland this was done much more successfully ; and a well 

 deserved tribute is due to the Veterinary Department (now under the De- 

 partment of Agriculture), for the able manner in which they have combated 

 the disease. The increase may also be accounted for (a) by the increase in 

 the consumption of pork in England ; (d) by the increase in the number of 

 bacon curing establishments in England. 



The supply of pigs in Ireland has in the past been looked on, to a great 

 extent, as depending on a good or a bad potato crop ; but as we have 

 already pointed out, Denmark, whose chmatic conditions are not at all as 

 favourable to pig raising as Ireland's, and which is not a potato-growing 

 country, and in extent but very little larger than the province of Munster, 

 succeeds in producing annually 50 per cent, more pigs than the whole of 

 Ireland. Denmark, it must be remembered, how^ever, grows feeding barley, 

 and this, with the large supply of skim milk available enables the Danes ta 

 compete with Irish bacon curers and farmers who use potatoes, etc., instead 

 of barley. 



Tradition has it that the birthplace of the bacon curing industry w^as Bal- 

 tinglass in the (.ounty Wicklow, and that that county was at one time the 



