7G4 
Tlie Future of Agricultural Competition. 
depression which has prevailed in the American cattle markets. 
Cattle were so extremely cheap during the three or four j^ears 
ending with 1890, and cheaper than ever in that year, that, 
although our prices were somewhat reduced, shippers were able 
to enlarge their supplies. American papers have reported 
heavy losses, and have sometimes declared that the export trade 
of a season as a whole has been done at a loss. The balance- 
sheet of one great company for seven months ending with 
September 1890, now before me, shows a loss of over 6,000i., 
attributed mainly by the directors to ihe un remunerative 
returns of the trade with England. But some men must have 
made the trade pay in the long run, or it would have declined 
before the present year. Freights have been very low, and this 
has helped shippers. This year, however, cattle good enough to 
send here have become comparatively scarce and dear, and some 
heavy losses are reported, while the supplies have fallen off to a 
considerable extent. For the ten months ending with October, 
our receipts of cattle from the United States were only 
270,252, as compared with 325,430 for the corresponding period 
of last year. Fresh beef, however, has increased to the extent 
of about 37,000 cwt. for the ten months. 
The days of very cheap beef-production in America are 
drawing to an end. As many cattle may be fed on farms as 
have ever been fed on farms and ranges together, when the 
ranges are all divided ; but they will be reared at a much 
greater expense. For a time, moreover, it is probable that the 
proportion of well-bred cattle will be reduced, as a high Ameri- 
can authority states that the general quality of farm cattle sold 
at Chicago is strikingly inferior to that of the range cattle, 
although the best of the former class are the best of all. This 
is not surprising, as small farmers, unless they combine, cannot 
afford to purchase pure-bred bulls, as the " cattle kings " can. 
The probability is, then, that competition in beef-production for 
the future will be less severe than it has been in the past, unless 
some new source of supply is opened up. But there are dangers 
ahead which it would be foolish to ignore, such as the gradual 
levelling-up in the quality of cattle in the Argentine Republic 
and some other South American countries, the increase of breed- 
ing in the North-west of Canada, and another change which, if 
it be possible, might prove most injurious of all to British meat 
producers. I refer to the discovery of a method of sending 
meat from Australasia in a chilled, instead of a fi'ozen, state. It 
has been reported that a method of doing this has already been 
discovered ; but the accuracy of the statement is doubtful, and 
perhaps the feat will never be accomplished. If it should be, 
