296 Report on the American and Canadian Meat Trade. 
much of its present and of its former prosperity. This, I 
hope, will ultimately prove to have been a too gloomy view of 
the situation. 
Strange to say, however, those who have most misgivings about 
the influence for harm which they suppose the American meat- 
trade will exert over their calling, are not the grazing so much 
as the dairying farmers. This may be taken to be well proved 
by the fact that barren cows, for grazing and fattening purposes, 
were higher in price last spring than in any previous one I per- 
sonally remember. For this, two prime causes, at least, may be 
adduced : the diminution in number of cattle in these islands, 
as shown by the Agricultural Returns for 1875-6, and the prohi- 
bition placed on fat as well as store cattle coming from Germany, 
coupled with the then imminent prospect of war in the East — a 
prospect which was shortly realised. But cogent reasons against 
it, which might have been expected to tell, may also be adduced, 
viz. the presence of Rinderpest in the country — introduced, as 
in 1865, by fat cattle from Germany — the rapidly increasing 
importations of American meat, and the great advance which 
took place in the price of cheese in March and April. The fact, 
however, remains the same. 
On the other hand, the price of in-calf cows was lower than 
in the previous spring ; and this again is strange, in view of 
the advance of the price of cheese, and of the increased demand 
which arose in London for milk from the country — an increase 
principally caused by the number of cows which were slaughtered 
on account of the plague, in and around the metropolis. For 
some years past there has been a tendency towards grazing rather 
than dairying, principally with the view of keeping down the 
labour-bill and the general expenses of the farm ; and this 
has tended to keep down the price of in-calf cows on the one 
hand, and to raise the price of barren ones on the other. 
At the commencement of the year it was predicted by some 
that these things would be reversed ; they have not been so, and 
this seems to me to prove that the "plague of American meat," 
to a great degree, soon passed away from the minds of our 
farmers. 
I have said above that it is dairy farmers who have now the 
most misgiving about the influence which the American meat 
will exert. They, in common with those who graze, have 
doubts as to the feasibility of bringing over much dead meat 
from America, and especially as to its being successfully dis- 
tributed over this country in fresh condition, in summer time. 
But they no longer doubt that a practically unlimited supply 
can be sent over to us, and successfully distributed, in winter 
time. This last, they think, must inevitably hurt stall-feeding 
