8 



CATTLE AND DAIRY FARMING. 



from Germany, and only 122,680 pounds from the United States. Our 

 own official returns make no special mention of any exports of fresli 

 beef before the year 1877, when 49,210,990 pounds the whole export 

 were shipped to the United Kingdom. Our trade in fresh beef has 

 sprung into sudden magnitude, having steadily increased from 49,210,990 

 pounds, valued at $4,552,523, in 1877, to 120,784,004 pounds, valued at 

 $11,987,331, in 1884. 



The British official returns place the following per-pound value upon, 

 the imports of fresh beef into the kingdom during the years 1880, 1881, 

 1882, 1883, and 1884: 



It will be seen that American beef maintained the lead of all countries 

 from which meat is drawn in any quantity. The slight price decrease in 

 1884 can have no significance when the immense quantity imported from 

 the United States (90.904,128 pounds) is taken into consideration. 



Our consular reports a few years back repeatedly referred to the 

 prejudice existing in Great Britain against American beef, while at the 

 same time the British people were unknowingly proving the ground- 

 lessness for such prejudice by eating large quantities thereof under the 

 name of prime English beef a trick of the butchers, who had helped to 

 create and maintain the prejudice referred to. 



The consuls asserted that this prejudice, principally engendered and 

 sustained by the butchers, whose interests it was feared would be injured 

 by the American fresh-beef trade, required for its total dissipation only 

 comprehensive and intelligent action on the part of our exporters in 

 placing their meat properly before the British people, who would un- 

 doubtedly consult and conserve their own interests in the premises. 



Central meat depots, with outlying shops in the principal cities of the 

 kingdom, controlled and directed by British agents in the employ of 

 the American shippers, or having an interest in the business, were sug*- 

 gested as the radical remedy for the immediate development of an al- 

 most unlimited trade in fresh beef. 



Eecent reports make no reference to this phase of the trade, and it is 

 to be assumed that the British public have become more or less convinced 

 that American cattle and American meats are the v^ry best in the world, 

 outside of, perhaps, their own selected cattle and beef. It may even be 

 doubted whether the best forced-fed English beef is any better than the 

 beef raised on our rich and succulent ranges. 



The following extracts from a report written by the consul at Manches- 

 ter in 1882 will illustrate this peculiar phase of our fresh-beef trade in 

 England : 



The wide difference between the price English butchers pay our American export- 

 ers for their meats, as compared with the price they charge for the same at retail, 

 leads me to again refer to the great need of the adoption of better methods for placing 

 our meats on sale here. 



At present the English dealer makes an unusual profit out of the American meat 

 supply. This is often done by misrepresenting the kind of meat he sells, for it is a 

 common practice, I am credibly informed, to claim that the beef, mutton, &c., on sale 



