CATTLE AND DAIRY FARMING. 9 



is all English, when, in fact, most of the weight on kand has just come from the 

 American supply at Liverpool. Not long ago a case in point came under ruy own ob- 

 servation. I made inquiry of a retail butcher if he sold American meats, and he re- 

 plied with some warmth, ""No, sir, I could not sell it here." The same afternoon I 

 was conversing with a gentleman, and incidentally mentioned what the butcher had 



told me. He laughed and said, " Two days ago I was coming down street in 



Manchester, and saw this same butcher drop a paper. I picked it up, and it was a 

 long bill of American meat, and when he assured you he sold no American beef he 

 forgot that all his stock that day was American beef, and American only! " This plain 

 statement of a fact illustrates how easy it has heretofore been for the English retail 

 dealer to cheat and deceive consumers as to the beef sold. The prejudice against 

 American beef is largely a thing of the past. 



And now that consumers are learning the tricks played upon them by butchers, ifc 

 would be a wise plan, in my opinion, for American exporters of beef and mutton to 

 take steps to compel fair dealing, to say the least, on the part of retail butchers here. 

 Several years ago shops for the sale of American meats were opened in various cen- 

 ters, but owing to the hue and cry raised against them by the retail trade generally, 

 and also on account of the prejudices with which consumers always regard a new 

 source of supplies of food for this country, the plan did not prove a success. Besides, 

 the supply was, owing to the uncertainty of the new enterprise, irregular a state of 

 things which no longer exists. I believe the present is a favorable time to repeat 

 the experiment under-wise and judicious management. Our meats have won their 

 way everywhere, and there is now no good reason why our exporters should not re- 

 ceive at least 2 cents a pound more for their meat at Liverpool, leaving retail 

 butchers here a round profit, and enabling the consumer to purchase the same at a 

 reduction from present prices of from 2 to 3 cents per pound. A cheaper supply of 

 good beef would insure an enormous increase in the quantity consumed, so that 

 cheaper meat would bo a great boon to many of the laboring poor, who now rarely 

 eat beef on account of its expense. American meat would be as readily bought under 

 its right name as it is now under a false name, and with this difference the pro- 

 ducer and consumer would each be benefited, where now only the retail dealer reaps 

 an undue profit. 



The statistics tlius far given go to show that we monopolize, in the 

 sense of supply, the trade in foreign fresh beef in the United Kingdom ; 

 and as it wonld seem to be more desirable for the United States to 

 supply that market altogether with the product in this form, rather 

 than in the form of live cattle, it is to be hoped that those most directly 

 concerned will so perfect and enlarge their systems of preserving and 

 handling as to do away altogether with what under the very best condi- 

 tions must be a crude and troublesome trade the shipment of live cattle 

 across the Atlantic. 



There can be no doubt that the fresh-beef form would also be more 

 convenient and satisfactory to the British people, and save them all 

 anxiety in regard to the introduction of cattle disease from the United 

 States, of which they seem to stand in constant dread otherwise there 

 would be no necessity for'laws governing the import of live cattle, and 

 regulations for the control of the stock before and after landing, which, 

 as before remarked, greatly retard the trade. 



The fullest investigation into the conditions which surround this trade 

 would seem to place the fault if fault it be for the shipment of live 

 cattle to Great Britain, there to be converted ihto meat, instead of 

 shipping from the United States in its meat form, at the doors of our 

 cattlemen and beef exporters. The fact that we now ship 90,000,000 

 pounds of fresh beef annually to the United Kingdom is evidence of 

 our ability to ship three times that amount, and with comparatively less 

 trouble and expense than would be entailed by the shipment of live 

 cattle to produce that amount of meat in England, besides the profit 

 which would accrue to the United States from the slaughtering of the 

 animals, the preparation of the meat, the hides, horns, hoofs, bones, 

 offal, &c., all of which represents so much gold to our manufacturers and 

 agriculturists. 



