ENGLAND’S NEW SHEEP-FARM.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2615, 24 August 1882, Page 4

ENGLAND’S NEW SHEEP-FARM.

[By M. Mulhall, F.S.S.] The energy and success of the NewZsaland coloniat could not bo more strikingly displayed than in the fact that they hare sent the first cargo of frozen sheep to Great Britain, a cargo of 5000 animals, in such admirable condition as to make the Leadonhall butchers open their eyes in astonishment. How opportune is this new source of supply appears from the quotation last week of Is Id per lb, wholesale for Scotch meat, a price unprecedented except in times of famine. Indeed, we have been gradually approaching a state of things, as regards meat, similar to the bread crisis when Oobden began his anticorn law agitation. Our own meat crop at present hardly feeds our population for seven and a-half months in the year j and as we draw from the United States nearly 2000 tons daily, we are in great measure dependent on a country whoso population is increasing with a rapidity to warrant the anticipation that by the close of the nineteenth century she will require her own flocks and herds to feed her people. Even at present the United States have fewer sheep to the population than the United Kingdom. There are, happily, many other countries now entering the lists as meat producers on a large soale, all of which will find ready markets, not only hero, but alio on the Continent, since Franco, Germany, and Belgium have to import 420,000 tons of meat per annum. None of the new countries of the southern hemisphere can produce meat equal to that which has just arrived from New Zealand, the cost of which delivered in London is little over 5d per lb. Thanks to the march of science, the squatters of Otago and of Canterbury Plains can send their sheep to the London market with greater ease than could the farmers of the Tweed a hundred years ago, when meat was selling at a penny a pound in Scotland, and tenpenoe in London.

Under these circumstances, let ns proceed to consider —Ist, the meat question in Great Britain; 2nd, the prospects of New Zealand in this regard. I. — OtTB POPUIiiTIOIT AKD MEAT SUPPLY. The normal increase of population in the “United Kingdom, in spite of emigration, is about 1000 souls daily; but there is no increase in the live stock that is to give our crop of meat. Thus it has oome to pass that an interval of fourteen years, since 1868, has added five millions to our population, whilo the number of food cattle of all kinds has fallen seven millions. The following table explains the position ns regards the inhabitants and cattle:

There is no reason _to suppose that the next fourteen years will not prove equally prosperous to British manufactures and commerce, iq which case the increase of population and the consumption cf meat will go on as in the interval since 1863, Hence we may expect in 1896 to have a population ! of forty-two or forty-three millions, and to produce only as mnoh meat as will feed our inhabitants for five months in the year. Our importation will then exceed a million tons of meat yearly, the bulk of which must necessarily come from the Australian colonies. Some people, who believe in the delusive theory of prices, argue that the consumption ol meat per inhabitant must decline in this country as the price advances. It is sufficient to observe that the price has never been higher than i present, nor the consumption greater. The increase of wealth in Great Britain in the last ten or fifteen years has been prodigious, and this has much more influence than price on the consumption. It is by no means unlikely that ten years hence yra shall have to pay Is 6d per pound for beef or mutton, and that the consumption per inhabitant will be even higher than to day, list us pause for a moment to compare the prices in past years (at loadenhall Market) with the average consumption in the United Kingdom per inhabitant.

Thusdnring more than forty years the rise in price has gone hand in hand with an increase of consumption, those two items acting and re-acting on each other as cause and effect. It is manifest that if our population ■were to consume to-day no more per head than it did forty years ago, the price would be lower. Sc far, therefore, from high price denoting a decreased consumption, we may be sure that it will be the reverse. This may be some comfort to the British farmer, who will always command the highest prices for beef and mutton in the London kKiarket.

_lN*,Just 200 years since Vnuban, the great military enginoer, observed that nations consume meat in proportion to their wealth, and the income tax returns of the United Kingdem in the last thirty years bear out this statement (the income of Ireland being estimated at 18 millions for 1850), viz :

Here we see that the relative consumption has kept pace with the increase of wealth, the rise being about 60 per cent, in each. And if we extend our view to other countries we shall find the same role to bo very general in its application, Franco and Germ any consuming more meat per inhabitant th.Mi the nearer countries of Southern or Eastern Europe, It is unnecessary to give long fables of statistics on the consumption in ihe various countries : those of most importance will be found in too appendix,

In the subjoined table will bo found side by side tho yield of English moat and the quantities imported, with the ratio to population :

There is indeed a slight increase of Bngliih meat in the last twenty years, consequent on the decline of grain farms, but we have no reason to expect that the United Kingdom can ever produce more than 1,100.000 tons. It is said already by the Leadonhall butchers that tho farmers are encroaching on the pro-oreativo power of their fl oks, by kUI ng too many animals before maturity, and thus weakening the stamina of so valuable an industry. *• If you want to eat four-year-old mutton,’* said one, “ you must not expect to find it in our market, but only on tho tables of the Duke of Richmond or other great landed proprietors.” At such a time the frozen sheep from New Zealand coma most opportunely, not to injure the British farmer, but to relievo the great pressure that would otherwise kill off a large portion of our sheep before maturity. It is quite possible, as the Duke of _Bt. Albans fears, that New Zealand mutton will be sold in our markets for English, nor could there be higher testimony of the superior quality and condition of the meat now imported from the Antipodes. What a strange result of the industry and enterprise of a handful of Scotch and English settlers, that the country which a few years ago was noted for cannibalism, and where so many missionaries and ship wrecked sailors were devoured, should now be in a position to send us at least a million frozen sheep yearly to feed our everincreasing popuation ! 11.— Snssp-FABMiNG in New Zealand. Twenty years ago New Zealand had fewer sheep than Lincolnshire, and twenty years hence she will have more than Great Britain, if tho flocks increase even slowly. The rapidity of growth at the outset was marvellou», as shown in the official returns : No. of Wool Valno of Tear - Sheep. Export. Wool. ‘ lbs] £ 1858 1,523,000 3,810,000 2?4,000 1868 8.419,000 28,875,000 1.516,800 1879 13,070,000 62,220,000 3,138,000 — Not only have the flocks multiplied ninefold in twenty-one years, but tho weight of flzeca has doubled, and the export of wool now averages 5j per sheep. This is 2d over the general average for Australian fleeces ; but the great superiority of New Zealand sheep is in weight of oarcsss, some of the “frozen flock” landed last week ranging from 1401 b to 1651 b.

If wa compare the yield of wool and meat of New Zealand sheep with those of other sheep-growing countries, wo find the result as follows :

The above shows very clearly that New Zealand possesses great advantages over all her competitors, which explains in a measure the importance that the squatters in that colony have attained in a few years, some of them possessing fortunes equal to those of Brazilian coffee planters. The Campbell sheep farm at Otago was sold, in 1881, for the enormous sum of £480,000 after it had given for some years a net profit of £58,000 per annum. Such it in faot the flourishing condition of the colony that the increment of wealth in twelve years (represented by railways, sheep, houses, lands) between 1868 and 1880 amounted to twenty-six millions sterling, the public debt likewise increasing eighteen millions in the interval. Although the total population is less than that of Somersetshire, their banking business exceeds fifty millions per annum, and the deposits in bank average eight millions. If the business of sending Home “ frozen sheep,” now so auspiciously begun, bo followed np with like success, the colonists can, without reducing their stock or infringing on its procreative power, send us about 100,000 sheep monthly—say 30,000 tons of meat per annum, or 5 per cent, of the deficit that Great Britain must cover by importation from abroad. The capacity of New Zealand for sheep raising is apparently eight times greater than the aotual amount of its flocks or area occupied. There are but four districts (out of the nine which compose the colony) in which sheep farming is carried on to any great extent, viz :

In the above districts about two million acres are held in fee, and the squatters’ runs cover an area of 14,000,000 acres, rented at 2d per acre. The revenue which the Government derives from lauds has for some years averaged £350,000, of which one-third is from squatters, the rest from the sale of lands to settlers. In many ports the farmers have sown .English grasses, the result surpassing all expectation, as the climate is peculiarly suited. The hay .crop averages 50owt. per acre, being nearer to the Prussian than the English average, the latter not exceeding 47owt. The colony hag, besides sheep, no fewer than 580*000 cows and 140,000 horses. Public lands not yet sold or let to squatters amount to 52*000,000 acres, which is almost equal to the extent of the island of Great Britain; but this includes 22,000.000 acres that are of little or no value. There is still available for sheep-farming, or agriculture, and undisposed of, an area about the size of Ireland. What the colony most invites is that class of English farmers with some capital who have been in late years emigrating to Texas and Virginia, and perhaps meeting with less success than if they had tried their fortunes in the Britain of the southern hemisphere.

Number. Per 100 Inhabitants. 1868. 1882. 1868. 1882. Population ... Cows Sheep Pigs Ail cattle 30,637.718 9.083,416 3^,607,832 3.189.467 47.880.395 35.606.000 9.905,013 27,896,273 3,149,720 40,951,006 30 116 11 157 28 78 9 115

Tears. Population. Meat. Price per Stone, 81ba. Consumption per inhabiti ant. a lbs 1835-40 26,120.000 718.000 51 61 1841-45 27,042,000 783.000 47 64 1845-50 27,315,000 832,000 49 67 1851-55 27.896.r00 915.000 51 1855-60 28,635,00® 992.000 53 77 1861-65 29,471,000 1,110,000 55 83 1866-70 30,617*000 1,225,000 57 88 1871-75 32,125,000 1,387,000 C7 9G 1876-81 33,817,000 1,582,0“0 70 103 1882 35,606,000 1,741,000 71 109

Tear. Income Assessments, Per Inhabitants. Meat per Inhabitant. e £ s d 1850 £73,870,000 10 2 0 70 1860 335,110,000 11 8 0 70 1879 444,080,000 14 7 0 91 1881 577,210.000 16 0 6 108

Tears. English Irish, and Scotch meat. Imported. Per inhabitant. Native. Imptd Tons. Tons. lbs. lbs. 1835-40 718,0 0 — 61 — 1841-50 808,000 — 66 — 1851-80 9'0.000 44,000 72 1861-70 1,086,000 131,000 78 8 1871-80 1,002,000 416,000 70 28 1883 1.090,000 654.000 67

Per Sheep. Product of a flock of a 1000 Sheep. Value, Value of Clip. W’ht of carcase. In Wool. In Meat. Tl, pence. lbs. £ £ £ New Zealand 59 68 225 117 342 Australia ... 57 50 218 85 303 River Plato... 24 37 100 74 174 Capo Colony 38 52 158 07 255

Sheep. Population. Sheep per 100 inhabitants. Otago 4,446,000 115,000 3,870 Canterbury ... 3,560,000 . -02,000) 3,870 Hawke’s Bay ... 1,5 3,000 15,000 10,490 ■Wellington 1,386,000 .51,000 2,720