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 And of potatoes—

In regard to live stock, these countries stand in the following proportions:—

Of all these countries Ireland has thus the largest proportion of cattle, and Scotland the largest of sheep.

The entire loss sustained by the cattle plague up to October, 1867, when it had quite ceased, was 190,000 head. The natural increase in the two years since the disease began to decline exceeds 500,000, so that the effects of that calamity, so far as the national supply of food is concerned, have been fully recovered. The increase of sheep has been very rapid, the joint effect of high price of mutton, and the panic which in some counties followed tin cattle plague, and led to a substitution of sheep. The total increase of year has been 1,790,000. The sheep stock of the United Kingdom is upwards of 35,000,000, which is almost the same in number as that of the Australian Colonies and Tasmania, according to the latest returns. The total number of sheep in the United Kingdom and the whole of the British Colonies, independent of India, cannot now be much under 100,000,000. The import of continental wool is on the decline, while that of colonial is largely increasing. At the late rate of progress, our vast woollen industry in this country will ere long be sufficiently supplied by the home and colonial produce.

Whilst the increase of sheep at home has been rapid and great, there has been a very large decrease in the supply of foreign sheep. These, which in a single year, 1865, had risen from 496,000 to 914,000, began to decline in 1867, and fell back greatly in 1868.