CATTLE PRICES.

Southland Times, Issue 18965, 13 June 1923, Page 2

CATTLE PRICES.

To the Editor. Sir, —Many of your country readers will, I feel sure, join with me in inquiring who supplies the quotations of the estimated price of beef and mutton to the scribe who writes the report of the Wallacetown sale. Invariably the figure*? given ere not only misleading, but are frequently farcical and to the growers of beef and mutton are not worth the paper they are printed on. Last, sale (a fortnight agoi was phenomenal for short supplies of beef and probably the price per lOOlbs would be 5/- or over better than for several previous sales. The one immediately previous, your report quoted prime beef as being sold at up to 22/6 per lOOlbs when not a single beast in the yards touched 20/-. Indeed one of the best judges in the province told me that he sold a prime bullock at 15/- per lOOlbs—a fraction over lid per pound and prime heifer and cow beef was selling at 12/6 or about lAd per pound. We are constantly reminded in the daily press that as good citizens we should eat more beef. This is a campaign which the butchers can afford to subsidise as the hide and offal of a beast at current- prices more than pays for killing, cartage and other incidental charges so that butchers have bodies of prime beef landed in the shop at from l|d to 2id per pound. Let your houaewiyee

J consider the profits and although they do not come within 100 per cent, of those on millinery for instance, yet they are altogether out of proportion to the service! rendered between producer and consumer. Remedy there is none under the present haphazard methods of selling, but at the risk of being considered a crank I would suggest that the Saleyards Company erect a weighbridge and charge a fair rate to pay for wages of the attendant, interest and depreciation, making a rule that every pea of fat cattle must be weighed before they are penned up and the weight officially announced when they are put up to auotion. There is nothing new in this, as it has been the practice for over thirty years in the Home Country where the law com* pels selling agents to provide the weighbridge. We hear much and read more of booming Southland and herein lies a chance of making the province known as an up-to-date community from Auckland down and from Brisbane to Perth, yet it ap» pears to me highly improbable that except I live far beyond the allotted span that I shall ever see this fair and equitable system of selling adopted at Wallacetown yards. I am enclosing you report of the sale in Edinburgh on April 17 taken from the N.B. Agriculturist which please publish. I may mention that the terme B.P. and B.G. stand for “black polled” and “blue grey” respectively. I am, etc., JAMES LILICO.

The enclosed report is as follows: The following quotations are based on actual sales made within the Edinburgh market, on Tuesday, the animals having been put on the scales on entering the cattle market and afterwards sold by auction :—• Average Average Average Description. Weight. Price. Price

(In the estimation of the weight of cat tie there is room for personal errors enough to explain the difference in price of which our correspondent complains. His maximum price of 20/- per lOOlbs is subject to the same reservation. We note his however, and will see that there is no alack* ening in our efforts to publish reports thal are a reliable indication of the market.—, Ed. S.T.).

Prime. c. Q. L. £ s. d. PcwU Heifers— 2 B.P. 7 2 0 25 7 6 £3 7 8 Bullocks — 1 BP. 10 0 0 32 10 0 3 5 0 1 B.P. 10 0 0 32 2 6 3 4 3 1 B.P. 10 3 0 34 10 0 3 4 2 1 B.P. 8 3 0 28 0 0 3 4 0 Heifers— 2 Cross 8 0 0 25 10 0 3 3 10 Bullock— 1 Cross 10 2 0 33 5 0 3 3 4 1 Cross 11 0 0 34 15 0 3 3 2 1 B.G. 11 0 0 34 IS 0 3 3 2 1 B.G. 10 0 0 31 10 0 3 3 0 1 B.P. 11 1 0 35 10 0 3 3 2 1 Cross 11 0 0 34 10 0 3 2 8 1 Cross 10 3 0 33 12 8 3 2 4 1 Cross 14 0 0 42 0 0 0 0