WHERE SHALL WE GET MEAT? THE FOOD SUPPLIES READ OF WESTERN EUROPE: BEING LETTERS WRITTEN IN REPLY TO THE QUESTION, WHERE IS FRANCE, SWITZERLAND, BELGIUM, AND HOLLAND IN THE AUTUMN OF 1865. To which is appended a Paper on THE PRODUCTION OF FOOD IN THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL ECONOMY AT THB LONDON: ONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1866. The right of translation is reserved. PREFACE. THE FOLLOWING LETTERS were written, and many of them published in the Morning Herald, in reply to the question, 'Where shall we get meat?' The decrease which has taken place in the production of grain and meat in the United Kingdom has led its civic inhabitants to ask the question, 'From whence shall we procure our supplies of food?' Statistical information, respecting the agricultural products of European states, is not published by our Government in a separate form, but is mixed with the statistics of population, exports and imports, &c., and spread through a large number of blue-books, which contain a mass of figures. However tempting they may be, to a lover of statistics, they do not present much attraction to ordinary readers; nor do they contain the latest information respecting the state of |