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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 68

Produce of Stock

Produce of Stock.

The number of fat cattle slaughtered annually may be arrived at by taking the Victorian average head, since we have no returns from slaughter-yards page 11 and by the number of hides treated at tanneries. The Victorian average, allowing for private killing, is about one beast to every four persons, which would give us 144,000. The tannery returns show 135,000. Seeing that some of the hides included in tannery returns will be from animals that died, I will assume only 120,000 cattle to be killed. The value of fat cattle, according to official returns, averaged from £5 to £11; so, in order to allow for cows and calves killed, I will take the lowest figure—£5. The annual increase in value of the animals that are not slaughtered, excluding cows, may be reckoned from the average age, which cannot be put at over years, even allowing that very few calves are slaughtered. The annual increase in value will then be more than one-fifth of £5. The total produce will thus be—
120,000 fat cattle killed, at £5 £600,000
Increase in value of remaining stock, excluding cows, at £1 496,000
Cattle exported, &c. 60,000
£1,156,000

The uncertainty of the data obliges me to put this amount at a figure lower than I feel convinced it ought to stand at. 120,000 fat cattle is less than one fifth of the total, excluding breeding cows altogether—we have no accidental deaths to allow for, because we are going on returns of cattle actually alive—and it is more probable that we should have, allowing for calves, over a fourth coming into the butcher's hands every year. It is plain that if one fourth came each year, they would average four years old, and, at £5 each, would be worth £770,000, instead of the £600,000 that stands in the estimate