550 



LIVE WEIGHT PRICES OF CATTLE. 



The complete returns made to the Board of Agriculture under 

 the Markets and Fairs (Weighing of Cattle) Act, 1891, are now 

 available for the year 1902. Similar particulars have been 

 obtained annually since the year 1893, an d it may be desirable 

 to summarise briefly the indications which the figures afford of 

 the progress which the practice of weighing cattle has made at 

 the scheduled markets during the ten years in which the Act 

 has been in operation. 



In the year 1893, out of 1,219,000 cattle entering the markets 

 at the nineteen places in Great Britain then scheduled, 92,500 

 head, or j\ per cent., were reported as having been weighed. In 

 1898, Falkirk and Carlisle were added to the list of markets, and 

 in that year 138,650, or nearly 11 per cent., cattle were weighed 

 out of a total of 1,264,000 exposed for sale. During the whole 

 of the decade the number weighed, has, year by year, steadily 

 increased, and in 1902 it was 184,500, or about 14^ per cent, of 

 the total sent to the markets for sale. As has been pointed out 

 on previous occasions, the practice of submitting cattle to 

 the weighing test is much more prevalent in Scotland than in 

 England. Even in the first year for which these returns were 

 received, about 27 per cent, of the cattle entering the Scottish 

 markets were reported as weighed, and in 1902 the proportion 

 had increased to 33 per cent. In England the corresponding 

 proportion in the past year was only 8*69 per cent., but this 

 represented a substantial advance as compared with 1893, when 

 no more than 2\ per cent, of the number marketed passed over 

 the weighbridge. 



The extent to which the practice of weighing cattle has pre- 

 vailed at each of the scheduled places, will be seen from the 

 following table, which shows for triennial periods since 1893, and 

 for 1902 separately, the average annual percentage reported as 

 weighed to the total number exposed for sale : — 



