I .l«l 



Ml 



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844 



KEPORT — 1884. 



varied much. The home produce of 186B -was 2i'l,000 tons, equal to a little over 

 10 lb. per head of the people ; it rose as hin;h as 290,000 or 20^ lb. in 1872. In 

 1880 it sank to 199,000 tons, or less than 1.3 lb. per head, and for 188;3 it may be 

 taken at 277,000 tons or 17^ lb. per head. A great increase has taken piacp, 

 however, in the foreign supplies of bacon, ham, and pork. There seems to Imvu 

 been but 39,450 tons received in 1868 as against 202,900 last year, and even tliat 

 was by no means up to the figures of 1878-81, when from 2;{4,000 to 287,000 tons 

 were imported, the year 1880 being remarkable for the consumption of over ISA lb. 

 of foreign pig-meat against under 13 lb. of British and Irish growtli. It is q"uite 

 clear tliat, placing the home and foreign supply together, much more pig-meat is 

 used by the population than formerly, the 19 lb. per head consumed in lb»)8 beino- 

 now over 30 lb. ; and the foreign portion, which sixteen years ago was less than 

 3 lb. per person, has become virtually 13 lb. per person. 



Looking at the total supplies of all classes of meat, therefore, the aggregate is 

 greater than in 18G8 by something like 29 per cent., or 400,000 tons of meat. Tliis 

 is a larger increase than can be caused by the growth of population, for Avliich 

 217,000 additional tons would have sufficed; more meat we may safely conclude, 

 therefore, is being eaten than was the case in 1868, and this agrees with our every- 

 day experience. But it is almost wholly an increase met by importation, not 6y 

 home production, as the table I subjoin very clearly shows. 



The head rate of consumption, which apparently stood at a little over 1001b. 

 per head at the beginning of the period, has risen to upwards of 111 lb. now, but 

 whereas the British or Irish farmer supplied over 93 lb. out of the average indi- 

 vidual consumption of 100 lb., he now furnishes little over 82 lb. out of 111 lb. 

 Wo rely on the colonist or the foreigner for 29-4 lb. per head now, whereas sixteen 

 years ago we had to purchase from him 7-3 lb. only. These are great changes 

 The foreign supply has not only tilled up the deficiencies of our produce .«o far as 

 beef and mutton, taken collectively, i.s concerned, so that the head rate of con- 

 sumption of these commodities remains almost exactly as it was before, at some- 

 what over 81 lb. per person, but it has further enabled us to indulge more liberally 

 in the various forms of pig-meat by raising the head rate in this respect from 19 lb. 

 to over 30 lb. per person. 



It is not without interest to contrast tlie two forms in which these foreijrn 

 supplies have reached us. In the earlier years of the sixteen more thiin half of 

 our foreign supply reached us alive. Now, vastly as the live importations have 

 increased, that of dead meat has much more rapidly developed. All the \l\>' 



