42(3 Report to the Council on the Cattle exhibited at Neiccastle. 
expense, or the risk of a show of inferior animals. In the present 
case, the Scotch classes were inadequately filled, as far as 
numbers go ; and this may be partly attributed to the fact, that 
our prize-list was not advertised in the Scotch papers. I would 
advise that for the future the prizes which are to be given for 
local breeds should be made known more generally in the district, 
and that paying more regard to locality, we avoid giving such 
prizes, as for Sussex cattle in the north, or for Galloways in the 
south. 
But while we have been doing our utmost to increase the 
supply of beef, by developing the meat-producing qualities of 
animals, I think we have been neglecting very much their milk- 
ing properties. No doubt the price of beef has been steadily 
advancing, but so have the prices of butter and of milk. Ireland 
used to be a great source of supply of butter to our markets ; but 
in that country, since 1859, the milch cows have been diminished 
by 295,996, and we are scarcely yet sensible of the full effect of 
the diminution of live stock which has there taken place ; * and 
in all probability the prices will rise still higher than at present. 
This falling off in our supplies of production is already telling 
on the prices of foreign butter as well as meat. The butter 
which in 1854 was only valued by the Customs at 47. 5.?. per 
cwt., has, during the last two or three years, been at 4Z. 15.9., and 
this, too, during the period of Lancashire distress, when a large 
proportion of our best-consuming population was out of work ; 
and the quantity" imported, which was 425,663 cwt. in 1859, in 
1863 was 986,708,t while, from the marked preference given to 
fresh over salted butter, we may safely infer a yet greater rise in 
the value of the produce of our home dairies ; and, indeed, I find 
that the produce of my own dairy, which is bought for the Leeds 
market, averaged in 1852, 57. 12s. ; in 1862, 67. Is. 4«f. ; and in 
1863, 67. 10s. 8d. per cwt. 
It may be no easy matter for the Society to offer prizes which 
shall encourage the milking properties of cattle, but I think 
that both breeders and judges have too much lost sight of this 
quality in their desire to produce the utmost symmetry of form 
with early maturity. The following quotation from a speech, 
* This diminution is in no way counterbalanced by the imports of foreign stock 
into the United Kingdom, because while Irish stock since 1859 has been lessened 
by 077,323, our importations from abroad have only amounted in the same year to 
54G.127 head, of which one-third were calves sold for veal. The greater part of 
the Irish stock has come into our graziers' hands, and for the time has tended to 
keep down the price of lean cattle, but now that the number of reproductive ani- 
mals in Ireland is so seriously diminished, our supplies both of grazing beasts and 
of butter must decline. 
t The value of the oxen imported has risen in the same' time from 147. \0s. to 
nearly 1 "/. each. 
