The Question of Calf-rearing. 
1G7 
an instance of the reduction in the stock-carrying capacity of land 
which takes place in a wet, cold, and almost sunless season. 
It has been said that the wasteful winter of 1891-2, coupled with 
the deficient hay-crops of the succeeding summer, is primarily respon- 
sible for the drop in the price of cattle which occurred in the autumn 
following it, and for the falling-off in calf-rearing which will pro- 
bably be the sequel. In the corresponding sequence of events which 
occurred in 1886-7, the fall in prices was even greater than in the 
autumn of last year. And yet in 1887, the year of lowest prices, 
there had been, as compared with 1886, a decrease of more than two 
hundred thousand cattle in Great Britain — almost entirely consist- 
ing of those under two years of age, and showing a still greater 
falling-off in calf-rearing than the foregoing year had done. But, 
notwithstanding these downward steps — these supposed preventives 
of a shrinkage in value — the drop in prices came, and this in its 
turn was followed by a further decrease of more than three hundred 
thousand cattle, one-third of which were in the class under two years 
of age. 
Is this process of depletion to be repeated in 1893 ? If so, it is 
to be hoped that it will be only on a moderate scale, for these heavy 
fluctuatiohs do a great deal of harm all round. If a comparison be 
made with the earliest year of the Returns, viz., 1868, it will be 
seen that the country is now under- rather than over-stocked with 
both cattle and sheep, and especially the latter, when we take into 
the calculation the land and crops available for their support in the 
two periods respectively ; but if the comparison be made with 1887 
instead, a reverse picture is produced. If, therefore, we had in 1887, 
and have now, all — and even more than all — the live stock the land 
will support, there is ample ground for the contention that the store 
of fertility in the soil has been reduced by a long and almost con- 
stant series of impoverishing seasons. But all this is not to be 
easily admitted. 
A good many farmers rear all the calves they possibly can, when 
they are dear , but sell all they conveniently can spare when they are 
cheap ; many others there are who keep steadily at it, rearing about 
the same number every season ; and yet others — far-seeing ones, 
these — rear many when they are cheap, and few when they are dear. 
If only the obvious lesson could be put universally into practice, the 
fluctuations which occur in the numbers of our cattle would become 
far less extreme than they have hitherto been. It is disappointing 
to find how slowly the information conveyed by the annual Agricul- 
tural Returns filters down among the mass of our stock-raising 
farmers — indeed, of all sorts and conditions of farmers — and, conse- 
quently, how unnecessarily extreme the fluctuations in numbers of 
live-stock remain. By the aid of the past, whose facts are before 
us, it is most desirable that we should endeavour to regulate the 
future, in reference to this important question. There is no suf- 
ficient reason why, like moles, we should be unable to perceive what 
is in front of us until we have scratched our way into it. 
There are ample grounds for expecting that the current season will 
