Weddel and Company, from which those for 1885 and 1890 and for each year from 1895 to 1906 are given in Table XVIII. The home-grown is the estimated dead weight of sheep and lambs slaughtered, which is taken at 40% of the total number of sheep and lambs returned each year in the United Kingdom.
Table XVI.—Average Values of Fresh Meat, Bacon and Hams
imported into the United Kingdom, 1891–1905—per Cwt.
| Year. | Fresh Beef. | Fresh Mutton. | Fresh Pork. | Bacon. | Hams. |
| s. d. | s. d. | s. d. | s. d. | s. d. | |
| 1891 | 42 1 | 39 6 | 47 6 | 37 11 | 46 4 |
| 1892 | 42 5 | 40 6 | 46 11 | 40 10 | 47 4 |
| 1893 | 42 4 | 39 3 | 50 0 | 53 0 | 58 5 |
| 1894 | 40 0 | 37 10 | 48 5 | 43 10 | 49 1 |
| 1895 | 39 0 | 35 2 | 46 1 | 39 0 | 44 11 |
| 1896 | 37 10 | 32 7 | 45 11 | 34 6 | 43 0 |
| 1897 | 38 5 | 30 3 | 44 0 | 35 5 | 42 8 |
| 1898 | 38 2 | 29 7 | 41 10 | 36 2 | 39 6 |
| 1899 | 38 8 | 31 7 | 41 11 | 35 10 | 41 5 |
| 1900 | 39 7 | 34 5 | 43 0 | 41 9 | 46 10 |
| 1901 | 39 6 | 36 7 | 43 4 | 47 1 | 48 8 |
| 1902 | 42 8 | 37 9 | 44 2 | 52 9 | 52 1 |
| 1903 | 40 3 | 39 0 | 44 1 | 52 10 | 55 1 |
| 1904 | 37 1 | 39 3 | 45 2 | 47 1 | 49 11 |
| 1905 | 35 6 | 38 6 | 46 0 | 46 6 | 47 4 |
In the imported column is given the weight of fresh (frozen) mutton and lamb imported, plus the estimated dead weight of the sheep imported on the hoof for slaughter. The quantity imported in 1899 was double that in 1890, and quadruple that in 1885. Moreover, in 1885 the imported product was only about one-seventh as much as the home-grown, whereas in 1890 it was more than one-fourth, and in 1906 close on two-thirds.
| Period. | Cattle. | Sheep. | Pigs. | Dead Meat. |
| No. | No. | No. | Cwt. | |
| 1866–1870 | 194,947 | 610,300 | 64,827 | 1,155,867 |
| 1871–1875 | 215,990 | 864,516 | 74,040 | 3,134,175 |
| 1876–1880 | 272,745 | 938,704 | 44,613 | 5,841,913 |
| 1881–1885 | 387,282 | 974,316 | 24,355 | 6,012,495 |
| 1886–1890 | 438,098 | 800,599 | 19,437 | 7,681,729 |
| 1891–1895 | 448,139 | 407,260 | 967 | 10,436,549 |
| 1896–1900 | 549,818 | 607,086 | 91 | 15,785,354 |
| 1901–1905 | 510,468 | 319,272 | 30 | 17,384,366 |
This large import trade in fresh meat, which sprang up entirely within the last quarter of the 19th century, has placed an abundance of cheap and wholesome food well within the reach of the great industrial populations of the United Kingdom.
Table XVIII.—Home Product and Imports of Sheep and Mutton
into the United Kingdom—Thousands of Tons.
| Year. | Home- grown. |
Imported. | Year. | Home- grown. |
Imported. |
| 1885 | 322 | 47 | 1900 | 332 | 179 |
| 1890 | 339 | 92 | 1901 | 330 | 191 |
| 1895 | 319 | 157 | 1902 | 322 | 191 |
| 1896 | 329 | 164 | 1903 | 318 | 210[1] |
| 1897 | 327 | 175 | 1904 | 311 | 185 |
| 1898 | 333 | 182 | 1905 | 312 | 195 |
| 1899 | 339 | 187 | 1906 | 313 | 207 |
At the same time it cannot be gainsaid that it has opened the way to fraud. Butchers have palmed off upon their customers imported fresh meat as homegrown, and secured a dishonest profit by charging for it the prices of the latter, which are considerably in excess of those of the imported product.
Sale of Cattle by Live Weight.
In connexion with the internal live stock trade of Great Britain attention must be directed to the Markets and Fairs (Weighing of Cattle) Act 1891. The object of this measure is to replace the old-fashioned system of guessing at the weight of an animal by the sounder method of obtaining the exact weight by means of the weighbridge. The grazier buys and sells cattle much less frequently than the butcher buys them, so that the latter is naturally more skilled in estimating the weight of a beast through the use of the eye and the hand. The resort to the weighbridge should put both on an equality, and its use tends to increase. Under the act, as supplemented by an order of the Board of Agriculture in 1905, there were in that year 26 scheduled places in England and 10 in Scotland, or 36 altogether, from which returns were obtained. The numbers of cattle (both fat and store) weighed at scheduled places in 1893 and 1905[2] were respectively 7·59 and 18% of those entering those markets. The numbers for Scotland are greater throughout than those for England, 72% of the fat cattle entering the scheduled markets in Scotland in 1905[2] having been weighed, while in England the proportion was only 20%. Little use is made of the weighbridge in selling store-cattle, sheep or swine. As the main object of the act is to obtain records of prices, it follows that only in so far as statements of the prices realized, together with the description of the animals involved, are obtained, is the full advantage of the statute secured. In 1905 the average price per cwt. for fat cattle in Great Britain was 32s. 11d. as compared with 35s. 2d. in 1900.
Food-values and Early Maturity.
In the feeding experiments which have been carried on at Rothamsted it has been shown that the amount consumed both for a given live weight of animal within a given time, and for the production of a given amount of increase, is, as current food-stuffs go, measurable more by the amounts they contain of digestible and available non-nitrogenous constituents than by the amounts of the digestible and available nitrogenous constituents they supply. The non-nitrogenous substance (the fat) in the increase in live Weight of an animal is, at any rate in great part, if not entirely, derived from the non-nitrogenous constituents of the food. Of the nitrogenous compounds in food, on the other hand, only a small proportion of the whole consumed is finally stored up in the increase of the animal—in other words, a very large amount of nitrogen passes through the body beyond that which is finally retained in the increase. and so remains for manure. Hence it is that the amount of food consumed to produce a given amount of increase in live weight, as well as that required for the sustentation of a given live weight for a given time, should—provided the food be not abnormally deficient in nitrogenous substance—be characteristically dependent on its supplies of digestible and available non-nitrogenous constituents. It has further been shown that, in the exercise of force by animals, there is a greatly increased expenditure of the non-nitrogenous constituents of food, but little, if any, of the nitrogenous. Thus, then, alike for maintenance, for increase, and for the exercise of force, the exigencies of the system are characterized more by the demand for the digestible non-nitrogenous or more specially respiratory and fat-forming constituents than by that for the nitrogenous or more specially flesh-forming ones. Hence, as current fattening food-stuffs go—assuming, of course, that they are not abnormally low in the nitrogenous constituents—they are, as foods, more valuable in proportion to their richness in digestible and available non nitrogenous than to that of their nitrogenous constituents. As, however, the manure of the animals of the farm is valuable largely in proportion to the nitrogen it contains, there is, so far, an advantage in giving a food somewhat rich in nitrogen, provided it is in other respects a good one. and, weight for Weight, not much more costly.
The quantity of digestible nutritive matter in 1000 lb of ordinary feeding-stuffs when supplied to sheep or oxen is shown in Table XIX. This table is taken from Warington’s Chemistry of the Farm, 19th edition (Vinton and Co.), to which reference may be made for a detailed discussion of the feeding of animals. In the fattening of animals for the butcher the principle of
