452 
On Weighing Live- Stock. 
price agreed upon. These tables are applicable for a range of 
live-weight from 50 to 130 stones of 14 lbs., for a range from 
50 to 65 per cent, of carcass-weight, and for prices ranging from 
4d. to 8d. per lb., carcass-weight, advancing ^d. per lb. from M. 
to 8d. The dead- or carcass-weights are given in cwts. of 
112 lbs., in scores of 20 lbs., in stones of 14 lbs., in stones of 
8 lbs., and in lbs. These tables ai'e to be procixred at 12 Hanover 
Square. Besides this, is " The Pocket Ready Reckoner " of 
Mr. Thomas H. Thursfield, of Barrow, Broseley, Shropshire, and 
" The Conversion of Weights Tables " by Mr. Alexander Jolly, 
Simpkin, Marshall & Co., London ; also a useful single card by 
Mr. Robert Anderson, Secretary to the Cirencester Chamber of 
Agriculture. 
The contention that, from the very nature of the two things 
corn and cattle, the use of balances in determining prices of the 
former would be out of place with the latter, is absolutely 
absurd ; so is the practice of selling a live animal for a price 
which is left to be determined some time after the transfer has 
been effected by weighing only a portion of the animal, viz., the 
dressed meat, or so much of it as local custom admits to be 
dressed meat. 
Did any one ever hear of a quarter of wheat changing hands 
on market after this fashion — with the -price left to be deter- 
mined by the amount of flour the miller might dress out of the 
grist ? Such a proposal has possibly never been made by any one 
in business. The buyer and the seller from outward appearances 
come to a conclusion in their own minds as to the percentage of 
offals and that of flour in the sample. The condition is ascer- 
tainable by feel and smell — there is no talk about the amount of 
hypothetical flour. A word or two may pass about condition, 
damp or dry, and there may be a contemptuous sniff" from the 
dealer's nose after he has applied it to the bag — that is all. 
Some conventional, almost automatic, examination of the sample, 
and then the vital question, " How much a quarter of thirty-six 
stones?" — i.e. how much by weight — "live-weight," for the 
grain is as much alive in its way as a bullock, till it is knocked 
on the head by the mill-stones. 
To carry the comparison further : We have the breeds of 
wheat, each with well-known comparative values — " White," 
" Red," " Rivetts," " Taganrog," " Californian," &c., modified by 
the locality which produces them. So of cattle : " Polled 
Angus," " Devons," " Herefords," " Shorthorns," modified by the 
locality and the feeder producing them. If " Chidham " wheat 
grown in Argyleshire would be poor stuff", equally so would 
Devon beef coming off" the bleak hills of that county. 
