The Future of Agricultural Competition. 
767 
foreigners to contribute extensively to the supply of our increas- 
ing population. The increase in cows has probably fallen short 
of what it needed to be for supplying the growing consumption 
of milk in the raw state, allowing the utmost for the improved 
milking capacity of the cows. Moreover, there was only a small 
increase in the number of cows between 187G and 1884, and 
none at all between 1885 and 1890. It must be assumed that 
the production of either butter or cheese, if not of both, is 
smaller now than it was in 187G, because the consumption of 
milk in its natural state has grown so greatly. For Great 
. Britain alone, the number of cows and heifers in milk or in calf 
1 was 2,161,804 in 1870, and 2,537,990 in 1890, the increase 
being 376,186, a very small one for twenty years. Our net 
imports of butter, margarine, and cheese have been as follows : — 
1870 
18>S0 
1890 
cwt. 
cwt. 
cwt. 
Butter . . . \ 
Margarine ... J 
1,101,682 
2,294,897 
r 1,814,296 
X 1,058,799 
Cheese .... 
1,016,087 
1,764,094 
2,036,824 
Butter and margarine were not distinguished in the returns 
before 1886 ; but it will be seen that, together, the net imports 
of these commodities were more than doubled between 1870 and 
1880, and that they increased by not far short of 600,000 cwt. 
' between 1880 and 1890. The decline in the increase in the 
I second decade shows that, during that period, our home supplies 
' increased to a small extent, unless there was a diminished con- 
' sumption per head of the population. Unfortunately there are 
no satisfactory statistics of the prices of English butter in past 
years, and those of imported produce, which are the most trust- 
worthy for comparative purposes, are for butter and margarine 
together up to 1885. Bearing in mind that margarine has been 
coming in greater and greater quantity, as a rule, since it was 
first introduced, the record of prices does not at all account for 
' the great increase in imports up to 1880. The average price of 
the imports was exceptionally high in 1870 ; but in 1871 it was 
5^. 4s., and between that year and 1876, when the average was 
j 5L 17s. Id., there was a regular advance. Then followed a 
' decline ; but still, in 1880, the price was od. more than in 1871, 
and it was also higher in the next two years. As the increasing 
proportion of margarine lowered the average, the price of butter 
' alone must have risen up to 1882. In 1886, for which year we 
get the prices of butter and margarine separately, imported 
butter averaged bl, 5s. bd. per cwt., and in 1889 it was bl. 6s. 3d. 
