Report on the Agriculture of Sweden and Noricay. 219 
Oothenburg to tlie cattle-market at Islington amount to 375. per 
head, exclusive of insurance ; therefore the total expenses need 
not much exceed '21. per beast. 
With regard to the quality of the cattle which have hitherto 
j been sent to Great Britain from Sweden and Norway, I have 
f been so fortunate as to obtain the opinion of Messrs. Swan and 
' Sons of Edinburgh, contained in the following extract from a 
letter to me, dated June 30th, 1874. It is only necessary to 
preface this extract by stating that Messrs. Swan and Sons have 
I as large a trade in cattle with the European Continent as any 
firm in the British Isles, and that their statements are entitled to 
the weight due to the results of long and extensive experience. 
" Norway. — In 1858, one of this firm was commissioned to go 
out to buy cattle, a vessel being sent from Leith on the recom- 
mendation of the at that time Professor of Agriculture in Norway, 
the owner commissioning us to fill her with cattle, and resell 
them here on his account. After travelling through a large 
tract of country from Bergen inland, the cattle were found of so 
inferior a breed — ^bulls, cows, and heifers being grazed indiscrimi- 
nately — and the stock, 7iever originally of a good class, were so 
diminutive and unsuitable, that he returned with one cow as a- 
sample. The Norwegian cattle, so far as we have had them, are 
much like the Shetland breed, therefore so long as they main- 
tain the present breed in its purity, they are not calculated, either 
as stores or fat, to afford this country any source of supply ; the 
best we have had this year from Christiania have averaged about 
14/. a-piece, fat, and these our consigners intimated were first- 
class quality. So long as the system of in-and-in breeding 
is allowed, they are likely to get worse in place of better, and, 
judging from our experience, there has been no general improve- 
ment amongst Norwegian cattle since 1858. 
" Swedoi. — From this country we get the best and the worst 
cattle sent us from the Continent. The native yellow bullocks, 
which come from Gothenburg and Malmo, are, as a rule, plain, 
and sell very large for the money. With, in some seasons, a 
scarcity of home-bred store stock, some of our farmers have 
been induced to buy them in the autumn for fattening ; these 
have generally done wonderfully well on turnips, but their 
natural roughness, even at small prices, prevents our farmers, as 
a rule, from buying them. There are, however, many prime fat 
cattle. Shorthorn crosses, now raised in Sweden, which, sent here 
fat, make close on home-fed cattle quotations. 
" Were good Shorthorn bulls introduced amongst those districts 
where cattle are bred, this country could supplement our own 
want of store cattle, as the native breeds have size and hardihood, 
and they would also be very materially improved in symmetry. 
