Wales and Scotland being comparatively few. What are termed “swine-fever infected areas” are scheduled by the board when and where circumstances seem to require, and the movement of swine within such areas is prohibited, much inconvenience to trade resulting from restrictions of this kind. Frequently, moreover, the exhibition of pigs at agricultural shows has to be abandoned in consequence of these swine-fever regulations.
| Year. | Counties. | Outbreaks confirmed. |
Swine slaughtered as diseased, or as having been exposed to infection. |
| 1894 | 73 | 5682 | 56,296 |
| 1895 | 73 | 6305 | 69,931 |
| 1896 | 77 | 5166 | 79,586 |
| 1897 | 74 | 2155 | 40,432 |
| 1898 | 72 | 2514 | 43,756 |
| 1899 | 71 | 2322 | 30,797 |
| 1900 | 62 | 1940 | 17,933 |
| 1901 | 71 | 3140 | 15,237 |
| 1902 | 67 | 1688 | 8,263 |
| 1903 | 63 | 1478 | 7,933 |
| 1904 | 64 | 1196 | 5,603 |
| 1905 | 58 | 817 | 3,876 |
The Trade in Live Stock between Ireland and Great Britain.
The compulsory slaughter at the place of landing does not extend to animals shipped from Ireland into Great Britain, and this is a matter of the highest importance to Irish stock-breeders, who find their best market close at hand on the east of St George’s Channel. Table XXV. shows the number of cattle, sheep and pigs shipped from Ireland into Great Britain in each of the fifteen years 1891–1905, the numbers of horses similarly shipped being also indicated. On the average rather more than half the total of cattle is made up of store animals for fattening or breeding purposes, the fattening of Irish stores being a business of considerable magnitude in Norfolk and other counties. Calves constitute about one-twelfth of the total number of cattle.
| Year. | Cattle. | Sheep. | Pigs. | Horses. |
| 1891 | 630,802 | 893,175 | 503,584 | 33,396 |
| 1892 | 624,457 | 1,080,202 | 500,951 | 32,481 |
| 1893 | 688,669 | 1,107,960 | 456,571 | 30,390 |
| 1894 | 826,954 | 957,101 | 584,967 | 33,589 |
| 1895 | 791,607 | 652,578 | 547,220 | 34,560 |
| 1896 | 681,560 | 737,306 | 610,589 | 39,856 |
| 1897 | 746,012 | 804,515 | 695,307 | 38,422 |
| 1898 | 803,362 | 833,458 | 588,785 | 38,804 |
| 1899 | 772,272 | 871,953 | 688,553 | 42,087 |
| 1900 | 745,519 | 862,263 | 715,202 | 35,606 |
| 1901 | 642,638 | 843,325 | 596,129 | 25,607 |
| 1902 | 959,241 | 1,055,802 | 637,972 | 25,260 |
| 1903 | 897,645 | 825,679 | 569,920 | 27,719 |
| 1904 | 772,363 | 739,266 | 505,080 | 27,500 |
| 1905 | 749,131 | 700,626 | 363,823 | 30,723 |
Most of the pigs sent from Ireland into Great Britain are fat, the store pigs accounting for less than one-tenth of the total number. The returns from Ireland under the Diseases of Animals Acts 1894 and 1896 are less significant than those of Great Britain. Thus, in the year ending June 1905, they included 4 outbreaks of anthrax, 219 of swine-fever and 343 of sheep-scab, while there were no cases of rabies. Compared with the export trade in live stock from Ireland to Great Britain the reciprocal trade from Great Britain to Ireland is small, and is largely restricted to animals for breeding purposes. Owing to the reappearance of foot-and-mouth disease in Great Britain early in 1900 the importation of cattle, sheep, goats and swine there from into Ireland was temporarily suspended by the authorities in the latter country.
Exports of Animals from the United Kingdom.
The general export trade of the United Kingdom in living animals represented an aggregate average annual value over the five years 1896–1900 of £1,017,000 as against £935,801 over the five years 1901–1905. To these sums the value of horses alone contributed about three-fourths, Belgium taking more than half the number of exported horses.
| Year. | Horses. | Cattle. | Sheep. | Pigs. | Other Animals. |
| 1900 | 30,038 | 2,742 | 4,934 | 435 | 75,642 |
| 1901 | 27,612 | 1,648 | 2,761 | 378 | 68,012 |
| 1902 | 30,032 | 2,428 | 3,596 | 515 | 60,941 |
| 1903 | 34,798 | 2,736 | 5,579 | 776 | 52,095 |
| 1904 | 32,955 | 3,311 | 8,142 | 732 | 50,873 |
| 1905 | 47,708 | 3,938 | 8,378 | 931 | 50,307 |
| £ | £ | £ | £ | £ | |
| 1900 | 681,927 | 118,337 | 53,306 | 3032 | 45,241 |
| 1901 | 605,699 | 61,812 | 25,727 | 3437 | 45,476 |
| 1902 | 635,661 | 96,153 | 29,069 | 5053 | 56,691 |
| 1903 | 734,598 | 140,244 | 67,758 | 7053 | 48,335 |
| 1904 | 581,339 | 146,210 | 88,421 | 7850 | 43,868 |
| 1905 | 875,647 | 190,406 | 133,413 | 8024 | 41,061 |
The export trade in cattle, sheep and pigs is practically restricted to pedigree animals required for breeding purposes, and though its aggregate value is not large it is of considerable importance to stock-breeders, as it is a frequent occurrence for buyers for export—to Argentina, Australasia, Canada, the United States and elsewhere—to bid freely at the sale rings, and often to pay the highest prices, thus stimulating the sales and encouraging the breeding of the best types of native stock. Details for the six years 1900–1905 are summarized in Table XXVI.
Implements and Machinery.
It is the custom of the Royal Agricultural Society of England to invite competitions at its annual shows in specified classes of implements, and an enumeration of these will indicate the character of the appliances which were thus brought into prominence in the latter years of the 19th and the early years of the 20th century. These trials taking place, with few intermissions, year after year serve to direct the public mind to the development, which is continually in progress, of the mechanical aids to agriculture. The awards here summarized are quite distinct from those of silver medals which are given by the society in the case of articles possessing sufficient merit, which are entered as “new implements for agricultural or estate purposes.”
In 1875, at Taunton, special prizes were awarded for one-horse and two-horse mowing-machines, hay-making machines, horse-rakes (self-acting and not self-acting), guards to the drums of threshing-machines, and combined guards and feeders to the drums of threshing-machines. In 1876, at Birmingham, the competitions were of self-delivery reapers, one-horse reapers and combined mowers and reapers without self-delivery. In 1878, at Bristol, the special awards were all for dairy appliances—milk-can for conveying milk long distances, churn for milk, churn for cream, butter-worker for large dairies, butter-worker for small dairies, cheese-tub, curd knife, curd mill, cheese-turning apparatus, automatic means of preventing rising of cream, milk-cooler and cooling vat. A gold medal was awarded for a harvester and self-binder (McCormick’s). In 1879, at Kilburn, the competition was of railway waggons to convey perishable goods long distances at low temperatures. In 1880 at Carlisle, and in 1881 at Derby, the special awards were for broadside steam-diggers and string sheaf-binders respectively. In 1882, at Reading, a gold medal was given for a cream separator for horse power, whilst a prize of 100 guineas offered for the most efficient and most economical method of drying hay or corn crops artificially, either before or after being stacked, was not awarded. In 1883, at York, a prize of £50 was given for a butter dairy suitable for not more than twenty cows. In 1884, at Shrewsbury, a prize of £100 was awarded for a sheaf-binding reaper, and one of £50 for a similar machine. In 1885, at Preston, the competitions were concerned with two-horse, three-horse and four-horse whipple-trees, and packages for
