Ticenty Years' Chauges in our Foreign Meat Supplies, 487 
and are largely engaged in work which with ourselves would be 
done by horses. In his interesting account of that country in 
this Journal in 1874, Professor Wrightson showed in what 
demand these oxen were for working purposes, majestic teams 
being seen — sometimes as many as 23 of four oxen each at work 
in a single field. On property after property he visited, he 
was told that there was " no sale of oxen off the estate," as 
"they could scarcely breed enough to supply themselves with 
draught animals." 
The greater age at which these cattle necessarily come to the 
butcher largely diminishes the yearly produce available for 
man, and adds another reason why our consumers need not look 
for supplies, or our producers dread effective competition from 
this part of the world, even were all sanitary barriers removed. 
The circumstances are entirely altered since, in 1849, Mr. 
Morton (vol. x., p. 377), bade the farmers of the United Kingdom 
look to the Continent of Europe as their great future source 
of lean stock. 
Nor are the herds of Europe divided only in different pro- 
portions from each other into working and meat-producing 
steers ; there is also a very strange diversity in the returns as to 
the proportion of " cows," so enumerated, to the total herd in 
the different countries. To some extent this may be due to 
inclusion or exclusion of heifers, or even of mere calves in 
the cow class. A few examples of what I mean will furnish 
not only fresh argument for that much needed reform, the greater 
comparability of international statistics, but will help us in 
trying to form an opinion as to the countries where apparently 
breeding is most actively going on. 
Comparing our own stock with those of the Scandinavian 
group, we find the division standing thus in thousands (''000" 
omitted) at the latest date. 
Counti ks. 
Total number 
of Cattle. 
Of which Cows. 
Percentage 
of Cows. 
(000 omitted.) 
(000 omitted.) 
7 
4,7G9 
1,837 
3f-5 
720 
283 
39.3 
1,157 
417 
so-o 
4,184 
1,419 
33-9 
United Kingdom (including islands) . . 
10,873 
3,974 
3G-5 
2,327 
1,493 
641 
1,017 
742 
73'0 
1,470 
899 
Gl-2 
* The details for 1887 not being yet puLlislictl, tlie figures for Great Britain 
are tliosc of 188G. 
