486 Twenty Years Changes in our Foreign Meat Supplies. 
than 75 lb. per head was proposed as sufficient, and while these 
estimates include of course all forms of butcher's meat, there is 
no doubt as to the part which beef has played in the augmenta- 
tion. Calculations in detail of my own render it to my mind 
probable that for every 47 lb. of beef we ate in this country in 
1867 we consume over 53 lb. now. To meet this demand, 
it clearly would not be enough to have 29 cattle per 100 
now, as we had twenty years ago. We ought to have more than 
32 to be as well abreast as before of the annual demand. If we 
assume that on the Continent the growth of beef-eating has 
progressed as here (and in view of the lower standard from 
which a start must be made I should be disposed to expect a 
more rapid increase), then it is clear that the small additions 
made to the cattle stocks, and the slight rise in certain cases 
per 100 persons, do not, even allowing for improved weights 
of animals slaughtered, indicate such abundant reserves of 
European beef as would furnish larger exports in future. 
To take the case of France, all the evidence points to a very 
considerable advance in her rate of meat consumption. The 
official estimates of the agricultural enquiries held at different 
dates, give 23 kilogrammes in 1852, 25 kilogrammes in 1862, 
26i in 1872, and upwards of 28 in 1882, or from 50^ lb. to 
61^ lb. per head. This calculation, as M. de Foville has recently 
showed, gives rather lower results on each occasion than the 
situation would perhaps warrant. From another set of figures, 
not strictly official, but coming also from the bureau of the 
Agricultural Administration, he suggests a rise of from 29 kilo- 
grammes in 1862 to 34 in 1877, or, as we may put it, from 64 lb. 
per person to 75 lb. This rise is 17J per cent, in the course of 
15 years, a more rapid rate of progress than our own. The 
French deficit must therefore grow larger, and will require to 
be filled from outside sources. The mere increase of one or 
two head of stock per 100 persons, and that only in certain and 
not in all the countries of the Old World, will certainly not 
meet the requirements of the day. 
Another disturbing factor, which hinders our forming a clear 
estimate, from the cattle per 100 persons in any given State, 
of its possible exporting capacity, or of its possible demands 
in the way of meat imports from its neighbours, lies in the 
not inconsiderable portion of the live-stock of the Continent 
kept for work rather than meat. In the latest French enu- 
meration, out of 13,100,000 cattle, 1,446,000 seem maintained 
lor the labour of the plough and cart. In Clermany in 1882 
the working number was 3,280,000 out of 15,786,000. 
The Hungarian cattle are famed for their working powers, 
