WINTER BEEF 37 



bad, or indifferent. At certain seasons the numbers of prime 

 bullocks sent to the markets were altogether excessive; conse- 

 quently the price realized for their carcases was for years not 

 only ruinously low, but was very little higher than the figure 

 quoted for inferior beef taken from cold storage. 



On the other hand, one could very occasionally go to a market 

 where the supply of prime animals happened to be small enough 

 to make the connoisseur pay a proper price for what he wanted. 

 Then one realized the folly of flooding the market. No buyers 

 offered one another a trifle on each animal to "leave it alone"; 

 there was no pre-arrangement of the destination of the various 

 lots ; no animals were allowed to go through the sale-ring unsold 

 so that the buyers might offer their own fixed price to the un- 

 happy feeder. 



I vividly recollect such a scene during a period when the best 

 beef had been selling at a price between 6d. and jd. per Ib. for 

 several weeks. The market-stalls, quite accidentally, contained 

 only dozens of prime animals instead of the scores which had 

 been on offer for many weeks previously. The price, naturally, 

 went up to over qd. per Ib. and I heard the buyers say, as I have 

 many times heard them before and since, that they must have 

 some first-quality meat, whatever the price. On this particular 

 occasion, as on several others, I carefully noted the prices 

 generally prevailing on other big markets and there was no rise 

 from the general dead level of ruinous figures. How ruinous 

 this level was as regards profit on growing meat the following 

 figures show:. 



Cost of feeding Winter beef. 



Taking my evidence from some 200 bullocks fed in dif- 

 ferent parts of the country, I find that it takes on the average 

 1 6 weeks' fattening to make a moderately good store into meat, 

 that during a feeding period of this length one may rely on an 

 increase of 2 cwt. live weight, or an average increase of 2 Ib. 

 a day. 



The figures for some 80 beasts fed till they were "prime 

 Norfolks" show a period of 20 weeks to be necessary, during 

 which time they did not increase quite as much as 2 Ib. per 



