Prices of Live Stock. 



413 



for by the addition of Carlisle and Falkirk to the list of 

 returning- markets. The increase in the case of sheep shown 

 in the markets is 212,406, over the figures of the like quarter of 

 1897, ^he two new markets furnishing statistics explaining, 

 however, rather more than half of this increase. The number 

 of pigs sent for sale increased by 30,6g7, only 2,592 of which 

 Avere reported from Carlisle and Falkirk. The increase 

 in the numbers of cattle shown was especially 

 marked at Norwich, Wakefield, York, and Glasgow. An 

 increased number of sheep entered the markets at every 

 scheduled place except Bristol, Leicester, Lincoln, London, 

 and Salford. So far, therefore, as the twenty-one places 

 making returns may be taken as an index for the country, the 

 figures appear to show^ that more stock than usual w^ere sent 

 to market during July, August, and September this year, a 

 fact for which the exceptional character of the season may 

 in some measure be held to account. 



The proportion of cattle weighed again shows an increase 

 of about one per cent, but there is no progress, but rather the 

 reverse, in the case of sheep and pigs. In two markets, 

 Birmingham and York, no cattle^ and in ten markets no 

 sheep, appear to have been weig'hed, while, except at New- 

 castle, the practice of weighing pigs can scarcely be said to 

 exist, and at Newcastle the returns indicate that a reference 

 to live weight in selling is more popular for pigs than 

 the use of the weighbridge for any other description ot 

 stock. 



Quotations of prices of cattle, in the form prescribed, were 

 rendered during the quarter in 23,804 cases out of the 

 32,274 animals weighed, and in the markets where the 

 numbers of weighings were considerable, as at Carlisle 

 and Liverpool in England, and Aberdeen and Falkirk in 

 Scotland, the price has been reported for each head of 

 cattle v/eighed ; while the same result was nearly achieved at 

 Dundee, Glasgow, and Shrewsbury ; but in London prices for 

 little over a third of the weighed cattle, and for scarcely any 

 of the weighed sheep, have been reported in the three 

 months. 



The subjoined table gives, for the same markets as were 



