12 THE DISEASES AND DISOEDEES OF THE OX. 



are to be regarded as offering them the chief hope of gain ; and 

 that this is true, notwithstanding that immense cargoes of frozen 

 mutton are in these days landed in a good state of preservation 

 from the other side of the globe, and that quarters of beef are 

 imported weekly, as also are live cattle. We need not, however, 

 despair, for there is no country in the world which possesses 

 such rich pasture-land, such a suitable climate and such valu- 

 able breeds of cattle and sheep as we are provided with in these 

 islands. Hence we feel no surprise to find that, corn being 

 very cheap, and meat still keeping up its relatively high prices, 

 the breeding and feeding of cattle has become, and is becoming, 

 more and more general. About fifty years ago many oxen were 

 not sent to the butcher before they were upwards of four and a 

 half years old. In those days the demand for meat in the 

 north was so small that most of the cattle were sent when lean 

 to the south, in order that they might be fattened on the pas- 

 tures and the turnip-fields of the eastern counties of England. 

 Now, however, the Scotch have no longer any need to send 

 their cattle southwards, as they used to do in former times. 

 Nay, even the very reverse of this is now the case, for numbers 

 of lean cattle are sent from England and Ireland to Scotland to 

 be fed in that country during the winter. In the month of 

 June, 1884, the aggregate number of the horses, cattle, sheep 

 and swine in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Isle of Man, 

 and the Channel Islands was 45,610,269 ; of these — 



1,904,515 were horses, 

 10,422,762 were cattle, 

 29,376,787 were sheep, 



3,906,205 were swine. 



45,610,269 



We see, then, that the cattle of the British Islands are more 

 valuable than are the horses ; for, while we have only about 

 1,900,000 horses, we stand possessed of more than 10,000,000 

 cattle, which, moreover, in point of excellence are in all proba- 

 bility the best in the whole world. 



Every year about 1,600,000 oxen or more are disposed of by 

 the butcher. We may roughly compute that the average value 

 of an ox is about ^10 per head, and thus we have an aggregate 



