Management of Grass Land. 
103 
foregoing statement respecting our meat-supply was prepared. 
Had it been otherwise, I should have been spared the labour of 
collecting the data on which the calculations are founded. 
Though differing in many matters of detail from the article in 
question, the only considerable divergence is in the average 
weight of the pigs slaughtered in the United Kingdom ; and on 
this point the best-informed opinions differ so widely, that it 
would have been strange, indeed, if two independent calculations, 
both founded on estimate, had arrived at any close coincidence. 
As regards sheep and cattle, the substantial agreement of the 
main results obtained by two distinct modes of handling the 
subject is a strong confirmation of both. 
In that article it is shown that during the four years, 1807-71, 
the annual consumption of meat in the United Kingdom was 
slightly under 7 stone per head of the population. The rate of 
increase of the nation is 252,403 per annum, and the supply 
of meat from all sources has been shown to have been greater by 
82,279 tons in 1871 than in 1870. This would be at the rate of 
52^^ stone for each additional individual, or more than seven 
times the average consumption ; so that the national stock of 
animal food, if equally divided amongst the population, would, 
even after filling the 252,403 additional mouths, supply a larger 
allowance to each individual in 1871 than in 1870. Conse- 
quently, meat might have been expected to have been cheaper, 
whereas, in point of fact, the price of butcher's meat was higher 
in 1871 than ever before known ; showing that the increased 
demand for meat is not to be measured solely by the increase of 
population, but that, so long as the country continues to make 
progress, the increasing ability of the whole nation to buy will 
require a more rapid increase of supply than even the large 
additions which have been made in the last few years. 
The most probable mode of accomplishing this important 
object is to improve our grass land. The land under " Per- 
manent Pasture " in the United Kingdom was returned in 1870 
at 22,085,295 imperial acres.* This is exclusive of 31,330,215 
acres partly occupied by towns, roads, and inland water, but 
chiefly consisting of wild moor and mountain, furnishing but 
scanty herbage, yet, in the aggregate, supplying large numbers of 
hardy sheep and cattle, to be fattened on better land. The United 
Kingdom in 1870 contained also 0,320,120 acres of clover and 
grass under rotation. Of these three great divisions of land de- 
voted to the maintenance of live stock, the first is the only one 
which holds out much promise of speedy improvement, as moors 
and mountains are costly to improve and precarious in their 
* Agrionltural Rotuins, 1S70. 
M 2 
