212 Growth and Bevelopnent of the Trade hi Frozen Mutton. 
No one, however, wlio wishes to form an accurate idea of the 
new trade will confine his attention to the exact numbers or 
exact weight of meat for the moment represented. The ratio 
of growth is a factor which will command even more serious 
attention. And here such a Table as I have given will indicate 
that, whatever the future may have in store in the way of sur- 
prises, there are but two steadily developing sources of supply, 
2^ew Zealand and the River Plate. 
The Argentine consignments, it will be seen, which compose 
the shipments from the last-named quarter, are those which dis- 
play the most notable yearly growth. In this case the arrivals 
of 1888 exceed those of 1887 by over 40 per cent. ; those of 
1887 in their turn were higher than the imports of 1886 by 
nearly 48 per cent., while in the single twelvemonth before that 
there was no less than 128 per cent, increase. The rate 
of growth diminishes as the gross quantities increase, but the 
strides made in face of the low prices, which these shipments 
have nearly uniformly met here, are suggestive of very consider- 
able future possibilities. 
The New Zealand import of mutton in 1888 was 23 per 
cent, over that of 1887 ; the year before the increase was some 
1 7 per cent. ; and the year before that double this rate : so that 
New Zealand is supplying us at lower prices, and notwithstand- 
ing Argentine competition, with more than twice as many car- 
casses as came from that colony only four years ago. 
The Australian supply, though larger this year than last, has 
shown no such expansion as this — and, indeed, we get but few 
more carcasses to-day than were coming in 1884. 
Two Australian colonies indeed, and two only — New South 
Wales and Victoria — send us any mutton imports. The hotter 
and more northerly Queensland practically contents herself with 
a niodest foi'm of beef export. Notable variations, however, 
have occurred in the receipts from the two ports of Sydney and 
Melbourne, respectively, which are not without their lesson on 
the possible future of the trade, and merit close consideration. 
Unlike in area, dissimilar in sheep stocks and in the quality and 
description of their flocks, it was early recognised, in catering for 
the English market, that the small and lean animals of the 
merino type sent us from Sydney were less suitable than the 
heavier cross-bred which could be shipped from Melbourne, 
although that in its turn was materially inferior in weight and 
quality to the big frozen sheep which, originally at least, used 
to reach us from the greener pastures of New Zealand. 
Had I been writing at the close of 1887, instead of at the end 
of 1888, I should probably have insisted, in comparing the New 
