June 1895.] 



PRICES OF LIVE STOCK. 



99 



Very different returns continue, however, to be received from 

 England and Scotland. It is desirable, therefore, to regard these 

 separately, when the comparison stands as under : — 





England. 



Scotland. 



Cattle at Scheduled Places. 



1st 



Quarter, 

 1895. 



1st 

 Quarter, 

 1894. 



1st 

 Quarter, 

 1895. 



1st 

 Quarter, 

 1894. 



No. entering markets 



No. weighed _ _ - 



Prices returned 



Prices returned with breed and 

 qualit)^ distinguished. 



210,777 

 6,237 

 3,709 

 3,709 



221,839 

 5,509 

 3,288 

 3 288 



60,871 

 18,534 

 18,502 

 13,109 



60,723 

 17,078 

 17,065 

 10,690 



It will be observed that, so far as cattle were concerned, while 

 less than 3 animals out of every 100 sliown in the 14 English 

 markets were weighed, about 30 out of every 100 shown in 

 the 5 Scotch markets were passed over the weighbridge ; and 

 if the market of Glasgow, from which the returns received 

 continue very defective, were left out of account, the per-centage 

 of recorded weighings in the rest of Scotland would seem now 

 to reach nearly 40 per cent, of the whole transaction^. 



Outside of London it would indeed appear, from the returns 

 rendered, that the English sellers of live stock are even further 

 behind tliose of Scotland than the above per-centages indicate 

 in making use of the facilities, secured by the action of the 

 Legislature in 1887 and 1891, for the employment of live-weight 

 in their transactions in cattle. In the Metropolitan Market, out 

 of 25,000 stock shown in the past quarter, 3,557 were weighed, 

 or about 14 per cent., while prices were quoted in 1,554 cases. 

 But elsewhere in England, out of 157,000 cattle, or more 

 than six times as many animals, shown in 10 markets, only 

 2,680 seem to have been weighed at all — or fewer than in 

 the single market of Dundee in Scotland, where 4,259 cattle 

 were shown, and 2,727 weighed in the quarter. In a further 

 group of English markets — Bristol, Lincoln, and York, where in 

 all 28,005 cattle seem to have been exhibited — no single instance 

 of the employment of the weighbridge was reported during 

 the three months ending 31st March last. 



As regards sheep, of which a considerably smaller number 

 were shown, weighing is reported in four of the fourteen 

 English markets, but only 2,887 cases are recorded and only 

 463 quotations of prices supplied. Returns from Aberdeen, 

 Perth, and Dundee in Scotland show that sheep were weighed 

 in 4,816 cases, and prices are quoted for all of these. Of swdne 

 the numbers weighed remain quite insignificant. 



The quotations of price supplied for the several grades of 

 cattle, cover, as on foi*mer occasions, a vei y wide range, indicating 

 some lack of local uniformity in the classification of the trans- 

 actions and the determination of the several qualities. 



G 2 



