842 



REPORT — 1884. 



(5) gives in tons each year's imports of beef and mutton, the official returns being 

 too imperfect to allow of a separate classification of these items for the earlier 

 years, while the last section (6) represents that part of our foreign supply which 

 has most largely developed, namely, imported pig-meat such as bacon and pork. 



Meat Supply of the United Kingdom 

 in Tons. 



Distinguishing Home Produce of Beef, Mutton, and Pig-meat and Foreign Live and -Dead Imports. 



IONS COOOaDaOOOQOaDOOOOQOOOQOODQOO&CO 



1,800,000 



1,700,000 



1,600,000 



1,500,000 



1,400,000 



1.300,000 



1,200,000 



1,100,000 



1,000,000 



900,000 



800,000 



700,000 



600,000 



500,000 



400,000 



300,000 



200,000 



100,000 



H:fi[. : . : Hr-~fjfi: 



Before drawing deductions from these figures, I should state that of course 

 more methods than one are possible in estimating the home produce. In default 

 •of any officially accepted scale, I venture to adopt with but slight variation, as 

 sufficient at all events for comparative investigation, the scale proposed 13 years ago 

 by a well-known agriculturist, Sir H. M. Thompson, and corroborated in various 

 particulars at later dates by the inquiries of Sir James Caird and other statists. By 

 that scale one-fourth of the cattle enumerated on each 4th of June, and two-fifths of 

 the sheep are assumed as going annually to the butcher, while as far more pigs are 

 slaughtered in a year than could be counted on any given day, 116 percent, are 

 taken as the proportion killed. The weight of meat is arrived at by adopting for 

 the cattle of all ages an average of 600 lb. per head, the sheep I have taken at 

 70 lb. and the pigs at 134 lb. The equivalent weight representing the meat 

 derived from imported live animals is arrived at by taking the average weights 

 recorded for the first time by our Agricultural Department in their Report for 

 1883. While of course the weight of all forms of imported dead meat is given in 

 the records of our Custom House authorities. 



The selection of a fixed ratio of annual production depending solely on the 

 numbers of our stock may of course be challenged. Prices, competition, climatic 

 conditions, or disease, may make the ' home meat sent to market vary greatly from 

 year to_ year, and it may be urged that the imported supplies should be taken as 

 furnishing the only absolutely known weights, that one invariable standard of 

 individual consumption should then be assumed, and the total, which would then 



