TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 



845 



little over 

 1872. In 

 \ it may be 

 iken -phicp, 

 nis to linve 

 even tliat 

 fi7,(H)Otons 

 n-er 18A lb. 

 It is quite 

 pig-meat is 

 1808 being 

 as less than 



aggregate is 

 meat. This 

 11, for wliich 

 ly conclude, 

 li our eveiy- 

 tion, not by 



Total per 

 Head 



lbs. 

 lOO'ul 

 100-38 

 101-42 

 106-27 

 109-18 

 113-15 

 111-87 

 109-46 

 111-42 

 108-85 

 113 91 

 113-72 

 114-09 

 108-33 

 103-28 

 111-56 



: over 100 lb. 

 lb. DOW, but 

 average indi- 

 outof 1111b. 

 u-reas sixteen 

 i-eat changes 

 )duce 80 far us 

 I rate of con- 

 )fore, at some- 

 more liberally 

 ect from 10 llj. 



these forei;rn 

 i tliiui half of 

 jrtations have 

 All the li\>' 



animals disembarked on our shores on the average of recont year.'? do not funnsh 

 aa much as one-third of the foreign meat supply. While the advance in live 

 importations is 270 per cent, that in dead meat is 400 per cent. 



If I had endeavoured to arrive at the total production of moat in the United 

 Kingdom in an opposite manner to that adopted, l)y assuming that the con- 

 jumption varied only -with the population, and by a uniform rate per head, and 

 assuming as a standard the 100 lb. limit of consumption current in lSfl8, it would 

 have seemed that the home produce had fallen oil" not only relatively but absolutely. 

 But such a mode would have made it appear that equal stocks of animals on our 

 farms were not producing anything like the same amount of meat as before. No 

 one conversant -with the advance of agricultural practice, the growing weights ot 

 our fat stock, and their earlier maturity, will readily accept ,«uch a conclusion 

 Indeed, but for the repeated inva.'-ions of disease, and e.^^peciiilly the spread ot 

 foot-and-mouth disease, with its .serious and lasting effects on the breeding powers, 

 a marked increase in annual outturn niiglit have been looked for. 



There is, however, another consideration which should not hr overlooked. 

 What I have called our home production is not, strictly speaking, sustained solely 

 by British acres. The soils of other lands are made tributary to our stock pro- 

 duction. There is now a very large importation and use of foreign feeding stulfs 

 linseed, cotton seed, and other cake.-s, maize, and so forth, which pliiys a considerable 

 part in the fattening of native stock. Without these external helps we should not 

 turn out the 1,300,000 tons yearly on which I have reckoned. Sir .John Bennet 

 Lawes, than whom no man is more fitted to pronounce an authoritativt> opinion, .sets 

 down from 40,000 to 50,000 tons of meat yearly as representing the annual result 

 of imported feeding stuffs. Although not a very large share of the whole it would 

 probably place the outturn of 18S3 behind that of IHGS^ and the cost and soui-ces 

 of such additional food must nece.ssarily be a con-sideration not to be left out of 

 sight by those who are recommending the l-higlisji farmer to undertake to fatten 

 a vastly increased supply of lean store stoclc from the prairies of the far West. 

 Nor is the addition to the productive capacity of our soil due to the use of foreign 

 manures an unimportant consideration in the production of meat. Upwards ot 

 2,000,000/. are being now aunuallv spent on guano and imported manures, and 

 between 8,000,000/. and 9,000,000/. are yearly paid for such feeding stufl's as I 

 liave named, independent of the purclia.se of maize and other foreign grains for 

 feeding purposes. It is hardly pnssiljle therefore to refuse to recognise in these 

 considerations conditions which may senou.sly check the profitable fattening of au 

 unlimited supply of butcher meat. 



Especial interest has attached of late to the sources of our foreign supplies so 

 far as these are furnished in the slif^rif, of living animals. The risk of importing 

 disease and the necessity for the most stringent precautions have, doubtless, in some 

 degree restricted a still larger importation of foreign live stock, and possibly these 

 very proper restrictions have given a fillip to wliat I must regard as the superior 

 form of that dead meat trade which, as has been shown, has most remarkably 

 increased of late. Still, however, as long as it remains profitable, we are likely 

 to have live animals sent across the ocean, and the recent changes in the quarters 

 Thence we derive our mani supplies are sufficiently striking to attract attention. 

 In presenting these also in a graphic form a lesson may be taught to the exporters 

 of cattle from the side of the Atlantic where this paper is read as to the pre- 

 eminent necessity of the most complete sanitary system of protecting their own 

 stocks if they mean to dispose of their surplus in Great Britain, and if their trade 

 is to be a growing one. 



In the diagram subjoined I divide the imports of live cattle during the past decade 

 into three classes, represented by three yiarallel columns in each annual division : 

 (1) those coming from the American Continent, whether Canada or the United 

 States; (2) those from the three Scandinavian countries, viz., Denmark, Sweden 

 and Norway ; and (3) the imports f. all other European countries. 



The transatlantic trade in cat becomes appreciable in 1876. But since 



18J7 the receipts of live cattle fi e United States have risen, though with 



some remarkable fluctuations, from 1 1 ,500 to 154,600, and the Canadian quota 



Mm 



