74 



The Live and Dead Meat Trade. [april, 



ryegrass sells steadily at a guinea per cwt. Trefoil seed makes 305. 

 for best English, 275. or thereabouts commanding excellent foreign. 

 Good turnip seed has been fetching 305. to 325. per bushel, both for 

 yellow-fleshed and white-fleshed. Special prize-winning mangolds of 

 1908 command 1005. per cwt. for the seed, but the ordinary good 

 selected seed of customary use comes at 605. to 705. per cwt. 



Minor Staples. — Although this term is of obvious utility it must 

 not be construed with an excess of accuracy. Rice is an enormous 

 trade; it is a minor staple here only because the corn market uses 

 of it, mainly for mixing, are not very large. It commands 6s. gd. 

 per cwt. for the Bassein cargoes of feeding rice, chiefly noted in the 

 Corn Trade. Beet sugar is similarly a far larger interest than would 

 be indicated by the sales for food to live stock, even when proprietary 

 articles in which it is incorporated are considered. At the end of 

 March it was making 10s. 6d. per cwt. Barley meal at 75. per cwt. ; 

 Dried ale grains at 55. 6d. per cwt.; locust beans at 5s. 6d. per cwt., 

 or kibbled, at 6s. per cwt. all had an appreciable sale; nor can we 

 overlook the business done in maize gluten feed at £6 10s. per ton ; 

 in rice meal at ^4 15s. per ton ; in oat hulls at £2 6s. 3d. per ton ; 

 in decorticated cotton seed meal at 75. per cwt. ; in market poultry 

 mixtures at 75. to 75. 3d. per cwt. ; in middlings at 5s. 6d. to 75. 6d. 

 per cwt.; and in feeding flour at 21s. to 22s. per sk. Business in 

 minor staples amounts in the aggregate to an item which is very 

 material. Decidedly good bargains are from time to time to be picked 

 up in this branch of the trade, the total volume of transactions in 

 which is almost certainly well upon the increase. 



THE LIVE AND DEAD MEAT TRADE IN MARCH. 

 A. T. Matthews. 



Fat Cattle. — The month opened with markets for cattle showing 

 little change, though, on the whole, there was perhaps a weakening 

 tendency. On the first day there were smaller supplies at Islington, 

 and though buyers attempted to force down prices and thus made 

 business very slow, they were not any lower at the finish. No less 

 than twelve country markets were reported weaker during the week, 

 but only at Basingstoke, Leeds, Norwich, Darlington, and York were 

 any actual reductions made in the quotations for first quality Short- 

 horns, while an advance was recorded at Ashford and Peterborough. 

 The highest quotation was Ss. gd. per 14 lb. stone for this class of 

 cattle at Ashford (Kent), Hull being again the lowest at js. 6d., but 

 Ss. 2d. was a very general top price. The second Monday's market at 

 Islington was very poorly supplied as regards numbers, there being 

 only 790 on offer, and buyers being numerous, there was unusually 

 keen competition. Prices advanced fully Id. per lb., and the market 

 was cleared quite two hours earlier than usual. Shorthorns easily 

 realised y\d. per lb. for the best and jld. for second quality. A better 

 trade followed in the country, and more money was realised at 

 Dorchester, Leicester, and Darlington, while Lincoln, Wolver- 



