March ISOr-.] 



PKICE8 OF LIVE STOCK. 



487 



the law has placed at their disposal for marketing their stock 

 with a miniaiuna of loss. The five Scotch scheduled towns of 

 Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Perth, account for 

 nearly three-fourths of the cattle weighed in Great Britain. 

 The cattle reported as weighed in Scotland exceeds 26 per cent, 

 of the whole number shown, whereas the English average is 

 hardly over three animals in every 100. 



Showing the totals quarter by quarter for 1895, the difference 

 between the practice of the two countries is apparent. 



Year 1895. 



England. 



Scotland. 



Entering 

 Markets. 



Weighed. 



Entering 

 Markets. 



Weighed. 



1st Quarter . - - 

 2nd Quarter - 

 3rd Quarter - 

 4th Quarter - 



Total - 



210,777 

 224,010 

 210,373 

 266,492 



1 



6,237 

 6,176 

 6,401 

 8,746 



60,871 

 74,030 

 60,458 

 79,138 



18,534 

 19,887 

 15,919 

 18,133 



911,652 



27,560 



274,497 



72,473 



Some decline is visible in the English returns for the last 

 quarter of the year as compared with the same quarter of 

 1894. In London, especially, which supplies more than one 

 half of the number weighed, the reduction is partly but not 

 wholly due to the smaller number of cattle shown in the 

 metropolitan market in the last quarter of 1895. The Scotch 

 returns for this quarter are, on the other hand, greater, a result 

 that must be largely credited to the more satisfactory reports 

 now received from the market of Glasgow, which were originally 

 very defective. 



So far as regards other animals than cattle, the falling off in the 

 sheep stock of the country is, incidentally, apparent from the 

 reduction of more than half-a-million in the numbers shown at 

 the scheduled markets between 1893 and 1895. Less than two 

 per cent, of the sheep shown in Scotland are returned as 

 weighed, and less than a half of one per cent, in England. 

 More sheep in the aggregate are weighed in London than 

 elsewhere, but even there the per-centage does not reach IJ per 

 cent, on the numbers entering the market. 



The numbers of swine shown in 1895 were in excess of 

 those accounted for in 1894, but little more than one pig in a 

 hundred appears to have been placed on the weighbridge ; and 

 in this case the English weighings are more numerous than the 

 Scotch. The practice of weighing swine seems nearly confined 

 to the markets of Leeds, Newcastle, and Perth. 



Reviewing the relative extent of the use of the weighbridge 

 in each of the scheduled towns, as shown in the table on 

 page 490, it is to be noted that in Bristol and Lincoln no 

 single case of cattle being weighed has been reported in 1895, 



