Unpopular Beef
Those who go to Agricultural or Fat Stock shows only to see fat stock miss a great deal. More and more these shows pro- vide an occasion for the exhibition of new means of production; and the vegetable kingdom begins to impinge on the animal kingdom in surprising fashion. Indeed the opinion was officially and emphatically given at the Smithfield Show that the fall in the price of stock, which has brought very heavy losses to our farmers in the last few months, is due, at least in part, to other preferences. The fall in beef consumption especially springs as much from a change in feeding habits as from any poverty or period of depression. The small joint of beef which is supplied in such singular perfection by the Aberdeen Angus and its crosses (which as usual won almost all the championships 'at all the Fat Stock shows) is itself in part due to a desire for smaller meat meals. There are no Gargantuas left to demand the gargantuan joint of the great South Devon breed. As the Oxford research workers, whose theories were discussed last week, maintain, any policy for husbandry must take thought of both the psychological and dietetic habits of the people. Happily an acre of vegetables produces vastly more food for man than an acre of fodder.
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