Growth and Development of the Trade in Frozen Mutton. 211 
importers to enable me to contrast from the very outset of the 
enterprise, nine years back, the actually frozen carcasses of sheep, 
from Australia pi'oper, New Zealand, and the River Plate, in 
the following form : — 
Australia 
New Zealand 
Argentine 
Year 
Xumber of carcasses 
Number of carcasses 
Number of carcassei 
1880 
400 
1881 
17,275 
1882 
57,256 
8,839 
1883 
63,733 
120,893 
17,165 
1884 
111,745 
412,349 
108,823 
1885 
95,051 
492,269 
190,571 
1886 
66,960 
655,888 
434,699 
1887 
88,811 
766,417 
641,866 
1888 
112,214 
939,915 
924,003 
What these figures teach us, then, would seem to be that if 
we want a comparatively easy way to measure the addition to 
our market for mutton, which the frozen trade of these three 
countries relatively supplies, we might say that Australia, with 
her 80,000,000 flocks, just delivers in England about as much 
mutton as a single English county of the sheep-carrying capacity 
of Oxford, "Warwick, or Cambridge annually sends to the 
butchers. New Zealand, on the other hand, out of flocks one 
fifth as great as Australia, and almost the same as England 
without Wales now possesses, sends a supply equal to that we 
may imagine the combined flocks of Yorkshire, Durham, and 
Cumberland would yearly yield. In like fashion, the frozen 
quota from the River Plate — a mere sample, as it were, from 
flocks vaguely estimated at 90,000,000 head — may be said to 
furnish a duplicate supply to the aggregate yearly produce of four 
such English counties as Somerset, Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall. 
Veiy difierent, however, would this comparative statement 
prove if we commuted the frozen and the native sheep into their 
relative weights in dressed meat. Neither the large contingent 
of Argentine sheep nor the smaller quota of Sydney carcasses 
would probably reach, if we place the aggregate weight in the 
Board of Trade Returns in contrast with the number of sheep 
accounted for by the trade circulars of the companies, more than 
45 lbs. apiece, against the 70 lbs. which I assumed as the mean 
of all ages in estimating the out-turn from our domestic flocks ; 
and the New Zealand importations, which originally were 
landed here at something like the last-named weight, are now, 
with much variety of weight in particular consignments, hardly 
averaging more than 56 lbs. each. 
p 2 
