Prices of Live Stock. 



cattle entering the scheduled markets in each of the past nine 

 years has fluctuated with the conditions of the seasons, the 

 absolute number of those returned as weighed has year by 

 year shown an increase, and the proportion of the weighed 

 cattle to the total number has gradually advanced from 7 59 

 to 1 3*46 per cent., as is shown in the following table : — 



Years. 



Cattle 

 Entering the 

 Scheduled Markets. 



Cattle Returned as 

 Weighed. 



Proportion of Number 

 'Weighed to Number 

 Entering. 





No. 



No. 



Per cent. 



1893 



1,219,208 



92,492 



7 '59 



1894 



1,203,533 



96,344 



8-oi 



1895 



1, 186, 149 



100,033 



8'43 



1896 



1,000,014 



109, 184 



9'93 



1897 



i,ii5,iS3 



111,767 



IO*02 



1898 



1,263,991 



138,652 



IO-97 



1899 



1,236,091 



139,482 



11-28 



1900 



1,187,603 



141. 61 1 



II -92 



1901 



1,161,516 



156,289 



13-46 



The improvement shown in this respect was thus, it appears,, 

 more marked in 1 901 than in any preceding year. 



Since these figures are the aggregate of reports from 

 districts where the practice of weighing has as yet made no 

 perceptible advance, as well as from quarters where its 

 advantage to the farmer is more generally recognised, there 

 is reason to suppose they may be taken to represent not 

 unfairly the position as regards the cattle markets of Great 

 Britain generally, and thus to indicate a slow, but neverthe- 

 less steady, advance in agricultural opinion in this matter. 



The practice of the public Aveighing of stock still prevails 

 to a very much greater extent in Scotland than in England. A 

 total of 88,684 beasts, or about one-third of the total number 

 exhibited in the six Scottish scheduled towns, is returned as 

 passing over the weigh-bridge in 1901 ; while only 67,605 head,, 

 or less than one-thirteenth of the number entering, were 

 weighed in the fifteen scheduled markets of England. It 

 may, however, be remembered that in the preceding year the 

 number of cattle returned as weighed at English markets 

 was 57,989 only, so that nearly 10,000 more cattle were 

 weighed in 1901 than in the preceding twelve months. The 

 English proportion of the number entering the markets now 



