STOCK IN GREAT BRITAIN.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 January 1921, Page 5

STOCK IN GREAT BRITAIN.

•“PRONOUNCED DECLINE./ The latest returns issued by the Ministry of Agriculture regarding stock in Great Britain show that horses used for agricultural purposes were reduced by 25,000, and there was some falling off in the number of foals, which were 7000 fewer than in 1919. A. serious decline is shown in the total number of cattle, the figures being only 5,547,000, against 6,194,000 in 1919, a reduction of more than 10 per cent., and the smallest number recorded since 1903. The decline is most pronounced in young cattle under one year old, the reduction in this class being nearly 300,000, or 25 per cent. The number of young cattle was exceptionally high during the war, but the serious reduction which has now taken place makes the number on farms on June 4 less than in any year since 1893, when the numbers of this class were first distinguished. The number of cattle from one to two years old is also much less than last year, the reduction in this case being 160,000, or nearly 13 per cent. Cattle above two years old are slightly more numerous, while cows and heifers (in milk or in calf), though reduced by about 200,000 to 2,350,000, are 90,000 greater than in 1913, so that there is ample breeding stock from which to replenish the herds of the country. Sheep have been largely reduced, and the total now stands at only 13,380,000, or 1,750,000 less than a year earlier. This is by far the smallest total ever recorded, and is 5,340,000, or 29 per cent, below the average of the ten years immediately before the war. All classes of sheep shared in the decline, the heaviest relative reduction being in those one-year-old and above. Pigs, on the other hand, are being kept in larger numbers than in the last three years, the total, 1,995,000, being the highest since 1916. Sows kept for breeding increased to a relatively greater extent than other pigs, the addition being nearly 40,000, or about 15 per cent., so that the prospects* of a further increase in the number of pigs appear to be good.