THE WORLD’S CATTLE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2119, 8 December 1880, Page 3

THE WORLD’S CATTLE.

The meat traffic between this country and Europe is increasing steadily. The telegraph reports a larger number of cattle for beef shipped to Great Britain from this country durin the second week in July than for the same time at any previous period in the history of this traffic. And this recalls the remarks of an English paper not long since in regard to the sources of supply. These appear to be adequate; but the quality of the product is the controlling element in Engand. A poor piece of meat is. not wanted, and this country is in a better position to send a good article there than any other, and send it expeditiously also. There need be little concern felt about a market for all the first-class beef we can raise. The j journal referred to remarks that if meat is scarce and dear in Western Europe, such is not the case in other parts of the world, as the following statistics relative to America, Australia and Africa will show. Uruguay, the population of which by the last census of 1876, was 40,000 souls, possessed at the same time 4,873,924 head of horned cattle, and 9,142,155 sheep; but as those figures are taken from the returns made by the farmers themselves for the purpose of taxation, N. Vitalba, Controller of State, considers the more accurate numbers would be 6,000,000 and 12,000,000. The Argentine Confederation, far larger in extent, with barely 2,000,000 of inhabitants, had, according to a calculation published at Buenos Ayres in 1875, 13,493,090 animals of the bovine species, of which 5,166,020 were in the province of Buenos Ayres, and 57,546,413 sheep. But, according to the official announcement in the Argentine section of the Exhibition of 1878, the real quantities were 80,000,000 of sheep and 15,000,008 of horned cattle. A vast extent of the southern portion of Brazil, particularly the province of Rio Grande, Bolivia, and portions of Peru, in the eastern slopes of the Andes, are also occupied in raising cattle, but the difficulties of procuring definite returns are so great that any estimate made could only bo guess work. Turning now to North America, whore immense districts are almost wholly pastoral, the figures published in 1872 by Mr Block showed the existence of 26,693,305 head of cattle, 31,679,300 sheep, and 32,000,000 of pigs. But these numbers have vastly increased since, owing to the extensive trade which has sprung up between England and the United States in meat, both salt and fresh. According to some statistics published by the French Minister of Commerce, Canada possessed in 1876 2,624,299 animals of the bovine race and 3,155,509 of the ovine. The numbers supposed to exist in Australia and Now Zealand are 5,995,872 of the former and 61,649,067 of the latter, of which the share of New South Wales is 3,131,013 cattle, 25,629,755 sheep, as well as 173,604 pigs. Finally, England’s enormous oolonv in the south o£ Africa is, speaking generally, devoted to raising cattle, and, i although no accurate returns are forthcoming, • the fact is known that this industry is, extendi ing there daily.