STATE DAIRY ASSOCIATION. 463 



butter workers and all, so that if that same sort of plan had been adopted 

 in Indiana you would have thought, "here was a cooperative creamery," 

 but it was not; it was owned by an individual. The methods of prepara- 

 tion are of the most improved sort. I would not say that the individual 

 dairymen of Denmark today are in advange of many of the individual 

 dairymen of the United States; in fact, I don't think they are, but the 

 methods of preparation are commendable over there because they are so 

 uniform. The government officers keep such a close check that it results 

 in a quality of goods so uniform that the rest of the world knows what 

 to expect when it purchases butter of Denmark. 



In connection with this same topic, though you might not possibly 

 think it a daily subject, however, is the swine industry. 



In 1861 there were only 301,000 pigs in Denmark. That is not a very 

 large number. In 1898 there were 1,168,000. Think of the growth. The 

 exports of hams and bacon from Denmark has grown from 9,120,000 

 Danish pounds, in 1878, to 129,701,000, in 1898. Today there are twenty- 

 five cooperative slaughter houses for butchering pigs in Denmark, and 

 in 1899 they killed 729,000 head, which were valued at $8,000,000. 

 All of this pork packing, although they are known over there as 

 bacon establishments, is under one common head, with the central 

 management at Copenhagen, and while there is in one town, for example, 

 a certain number of farmers that are supplying pigs to that establish- 

 ment, they are all identified with the other twenty-four in the country. I 

 visited what they called one of their small pork-packing establishments, 

 and the gentleman who was superintendent of it could speak English, 

 and he said there were 800 farmers in that immediate territory that had 

 stock in that company, and that were bringing pigs there evei-y day. 

 They brought their pigs there, and they were purchased. Each one bore 

 his share of the expenses of managing it, and each man got his share of 

 the profits, as shown in premiums or dividends that were declared. The 

 idea of cooperation is a very strong factor in Denmark in other lines as 

 well as in the dairy line and in the pork-packing establishments. Now, 

 the Danes found these two things went well together. I know they sent 

 a commission over to Ireland to study the method of preparing ham and 

 bacon for the English mai-ket, and they went there and worked with the 

 Irishmen, and then they went back to Denmark and began to develop the 

 bacon business. It was only a year or two ago that the Irishmen sent a 

 committee over to Denmark to study the Danish methods. So, you see, 

 the progress that they have made. If you will go into the business houses 

 of the commission firms in Smithfield market in London, or in the Man- 

 chester district, you will find that the standard for the pork which they 

 handle, is based on the bacon and hams of the Danish. They command 

 the highest prices, and almost all, excepting a very limited amount of 

 English bacon, is quoted on the basis of Danish prices. 



