834 ANNUAL, REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



from 8 to 10, to 5U or 60 pounds. They are carried to market in 

 the one-horse farm road cart common to all Western Europe, or 

 in a smaller donkey cart of similar ijatteru, or in paniers on a saddle 

 animal. From ten o'clock until noon on the proper days, the roads 

 leading to the market towns are tilled with the neatly and plainly 

 dressed country women of Normandy, carrying their butter to the 

 sale. 



Alwut eleven o'clock the buying begins. In the market place, or 

 on the Tillage common, buyers have arranged receiving enclosures 

 or booths, with provisions for weighing and for jjajdng. These 

 buyers represent Parisian or other merchants, or the large factories 

 at which butter is manipulated and further prepared for market. 

 The country women gather around the square v/ith baskets on the 

 ground. As a buyer approaches, the package is uncovered, the top 

 of the motte exposed, and the buyer, with a peculiar knife or a little 

 tryer, examines the butter and makes an offer for it, at the same 

 time placing marks on the surface of the butter, indicating in char- 

 acters secret to his house, the grade of the article and price offered. 

 If the owner rejects the offer, these marks are obliterated, the top 

 of the butter smoothed and another buyer awaited. If accepted, 

 the basket is at once taken to the proper stall, the motte removed, 

 unwrapped, weighed and reported to the bookkeeper and cashier at 

 hand. The butter is weighed on a peculiar platform counter scale 

 or by steeh'ards, and unprotected, exposed to sun and storm, dust 

 or rain. The weigher picks up the lump of butter in his hands and 

 sends it sailing through the air to an attendant with a very large, 

 linen-lined basket ready to receive butter of the special grade to 

 which this is assigned. The owner is paid cash at once, and retires 

 with empty basket and plethoric purse, to gossip or ''shop," or return 

 to the farm. 



This butter buying at local country markets in France, is done 

 with remarkable rapidity. Of course the buyers know well the vari- 

 ous makers and the usual quality of their butter. But every lot is 

 tested and a decision as to grade and price must be stated and 

 marked. At a market which I witnessed at Carentan, held on an 

 August day in the shadow of the line old church of the 14th century, 

 which this little town i)ossesses, there w^ore twenty buyers, repre- 

 senting four purchasing firms or factories. In most cases the butter 

 was examined by only one person, the sale being virtually fixed in 

 advance, but very many mottes were tasted three or four times. 

 The number of makers represented and the total number of mottes, 

 could not be determined, arriving sellers so rapidly replaced those 

 retiring, but there were several hundred. The cases were very few 

 where one person offered over 50 pounds. The best buyers worked 

 at the rate of 150 lots of butter per hour, and in two hours, that 



