162 
Agricultural  Covipetition. 
Small  farmers  in  all  countries  are  disposed  to  keep  dairy 
cattle  rather  than  beef  animals,  and  yet  there  is  no  evidence 
of  an  excessive  supply  of  dairy  produce.  Butter  and  cheese 
have  both  sold  well  for  two  or  three  years,  and  yet  our 
imports  have  not  increased  since  1906.  Moreover,  such 
addiiions  to  our  supplies  as  have  taken  place  have  been  chiefly 
those  from  old  countries,  while  those  of  the  United  States 
'have  become  insignificant,  and  even  Canada  has  fallen 
back. 
Prospects  as  to  the  future  of  our  foreign  and  colonial 
supply  of  mutton  are  somewhat  doubtful.  Against  the  fact 
that  there  is  scope  in  Australia  and  Argentina  for  a great 
increase  in  the  number  of  sheep,  there  is  to  set  off  the  con- 
sideration that  in  both  these  parts  of  the  world  the  flocks 
are  liable  to  be  decimated  by  di'ought.  Australian  flocks  have 
not  yet  fully  recovered  from  the  enormous  losses  suffered  in 
a series  of  droughty  seasons,  although  several  years  have 
elapsed  since  the  last  of  them.  Until  systematic  arrange- 
ments have  been  made  for  a water  supply,  without  which 
it  is  shockingly  inhumane  to  breed  large  numbers  of  sheep 
in  dry  regions,  there  will  be  no  certainty  of  a steady  increase 
in  the  number.  In  Argentina,  such  severe  and  prolonged 
droughts  as  that  of  1909  are  much  less  common  than  they 
are  in  Australia,  and  yet  the  number  of  sheep  in  the  country, 
so  far  as  the  doubtful  statistics  enable  us  to  judge,  has 
decreased  by  over  7,000,000  since  1895.  Sheep  have  never 
been  much  in  favour  in  the  United  States  or  Canada,  and  , 
our  imports, from  both  these  countries  have  greatly  decreased  : 
in  recent  years,  while  the  supply  of  mutton  from  the  United 
States  has  become  insignificant,  and  Canada  does  not  export 
it  to  us.  It  is  also  to  be  noticed  that  sheep  have  been  reduced 
in  number  in  nearly  all  old  countries,  and  that  the  world’s 
total  is  much  smaller  than  it  was  some  years  ago.  The  great 
fall  in  the  prices  of  sheep  and  mutton  from  which  our  flock- 
masters  suffelted  in  1909,  was  due  rather  to  an  increase  in 
our  own  flocks  than  to  imports. 
Considerations  which  apply  to  the  probable  future  of  the 
'trade  in  mutton  apply  also  to  a considerable  extent  to  that 
of  wool,  but  not  fully,  because  we  receive  large  quantities  of 
wool  from  some  countries  where  the  sheep  are  not  good 
enough  in  quality  for  the  export  mutton  trade.  The  demand 
for  wool  increases  so  rapidly,  however,  that  there  does  not 
seem  to  be  any  reason  to  expect  that  the  supply  will  ever 
be  excessive  for  many  years  at  a time. 
Prospects  as  to  future  prices  are  perhaps  less  hopeful  for 
culinary  vegetables  and  fruit  than  for  any  other  products  of 
the  land,  but  rather  on  account  of  excessive  home  production 
