176 



THE PRICE OF BEEP CATTLE. 



THE PRICE OF BEEF CATTLK 



We again call attentioii to the state of the cattle 

 market. High as were the rates of three weeks ago, 

 they have increased since then, and it is but a few 

 days since beeves sold at .$90 to .S180 a head, aver- 

 aging iflOO each. In fact all the best bullocks sold 

 at rates equal to fifteen cents a pound. This is the 

 highest market ever known in this city, and probably 

 in any other of this country. The cause must be 

 apparent to every one; the supply is not equal to the 

 demand. The average weekly consumption last 

 year was 3,257, and the supply this week is only 2,054: 

 — 1,203 below the actual demand. The supply last 

 week amounted to but 2,174, and with a single ex- 

 ception, the weekly supply has been below the aver- 

 age since the first of January. Choice cuts of beef 

 will be retailed this week at twenty-five cents a pound, 

 and how long those who buy to eat and eat to live 

 can bear this, remains to be seen. It unfortunately 

 happens that the price of mutton is even greater in 

 proportion than that of beef, and thus is abeolutely 

 beyond the reach of many. 



There is but little hope of any immediate improve- 

 ment in these prices to the consumer, as there is at 

 present au actual scarcity of beef cattle throughout 

 all the country. The drain to California during sev- 

 eral years, the former low prices in the West, before 

 the introduction of railroads, and the neglect of far- 

 mers to raise cattle to meet the increased demand 

 which railroad facilities occasioned — these causes, 

 taken in connection with the recent drouth and con- 

 sequent increase in the price of corn, have coml)ined 

 to produce the present condition of affairs in our 

 markets. And that they are not likely to improve 

 soon may be gathered from the statements made by 

 Western and other papers with reference to the fal- 

 ling ofl in the number of cattle which has taken 

 place. Ohio papers state that in the county of 

 Trumbull there were 23,000 cows last fall, and at the 

 present time there are only 18,000. There have been 

 lost during the winter and spring five thousand. 



What is true of that county, is probably true of 

 many others in all the Western States. The inevi- 

 table residt of this scarcity of stor.k will be the con- 

 tinuation of the present extraordinary rates ; and 

 those who begin to think they can not afford to eat 

 so much high-priced meat, had better turn their at- 

 tention to find some other substance for food. It is 

 to be hoped we have now reached the highest figure 

 of extravagant prices, but we need not hope to re- 

 turn, in our day, to the low prices which were for- 

 merly seen in this city. — JV. Y. Tribune. 



The high prices paid for both meat and bread 

 ought to admonish the public of the necessity of im- 

 provement in the production of these articles of uni- 

 versal consumption. They sell at extravagant rates, 

 mainly because the land that furnishes annual har- 

 vests to consumers is steadily deprived of the con- 

 stituents of grass, grain, and the flesh and bone of 

 animals, so largely wasted in cities. Had the public 

 given b ack tothe soil during the last twenty years a 

 fair return of manure for all the crops grown and all 



the elements of fertility washed out of the tilled 

 earth in consequence of tillage, the supply of bread- 

 stuffs and provisions would be fully equal to the de- 

 maud in every city in the Union. But as the natural 

 resources of the soil are consumed, and no adequate 

 restitution made, it really costs more and more every 

 year to grow any product of American agriculture. 

 There may be a few exceptions to this general fact, 

 but they do not in the least impair its importance. 

 The nation is consuming not alone its food and rai- 

 ment, but the rery poicer and life of the soil also; 

 so that its capacity to feed and clothe mankind ia 

 steadily diminished. This fact, however, does not as 

 yet operate to prevent, to any sensible degree, the 

 rapid increase of population. Consumers still mul- 

 tiply; while the raw material of crops, in all meadows, 

 pastures, and jilowed lands, is reduced both in quan- 

 tity and quality. Nor can this exhausting practice 

 be corrected before the whole people are made to 

 suffer long and severely for their extreme folly. In 

 his latest work on the relations of chemistry to agri- 

 culture, LiBBiG says: "I feel most fully that to know 

 is not to be able; and that to the actual establish- 

 ment of a new science, a new generation only is 

 adapted." There is equal point and truth in the 

 above remarks. The present race of producers and 

 consumers will continue to the end of their existence 

 to ascribe the decrease of grass, live stock, grain, &c., 

 as compared with population in all the old states, to 

 every possible cause but the true one. To admit the 

 general neglect to feed the land which feeds all and 

 clothes all, would be a popular confession of both 

 error and ignorance — a kind of acknowledgement 

 never yet made by the popular mind. Hence it re- 

 jects the new agricultural science taught by Davy, 

 LiEiiiQ, BuEL, and others. If beef steaks were sold 

 in New York at fifty cents a pound, and flour at 

 twenty cents, because the denizens of the great 

 metropolis take everything from American soil and 

 give nothing to it in return, they would not recog- 

 nise their obligations to their mother Earth. Nor 

 would cultivators generally think it nccessaiy to keep 

 a true account with every rood of land, that they 

 might preserve an exact balance in organic nature. 

 The momentous idea of giving to the ground aa 

 much potash, soda, magnesia, lime, chlorine, sulphur, 

 phosphorous, carbon and ammonia as is removed 

 therefrom by live stock, by tillage, and in crops har- 

 vested, has no existence in the public understanding. 

 It really believes that if the inhabitants of a county 

 or a State return to the land one pound of bones to 

 one hundred pounds removed, the grazing lands of 



