606 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the purity of the milk. The poorest cheese had a very open body, showing 

 an abnormal gas fermentation. The success of the Hollander might be 

 attributed to three things: First, the selection of good dairy cows; second, 

 the feeding of an abundance of succulent food, and third, the milking and 

 caring of the cows, which is largely done by the women folks. 



In traveling through Belgium and Germany I found dairying carried 

 on somewhat as we do it in America, at least as far as the hand separator 

 goes. At a little show I visited at Visi, Belgium, I found no less than 

 seven different makes of hand separators. 



Belgium is the home of the limburger cheese, but I found in the dis- 

 trict from which it originated that butter-making was claiming attention 

 now more than cheese making. In a little town by the name of Oelde, in 

 Westphalia, Germany, I found two large manufacturers of hand separator 

 machines. The one gave employment to 100 men and they maintained they 

 could not supply the demand. So we see the spread of the hand separator 

 is universal. 



Passing from Germany, we visited Denmark. Every person, I pre- 

 sume, who has any interest in the butter business, feels a great desire to 

 visit little Denmark. There is little variety in the surface of Denmai-k. 

 The highest point in the country is only 550 feet above the sea level. Den- 

 mark, however, is nowhere low in the sense in which Holland is. The 

 lay of the land is certainly changing. It rises a little at the sea coast, 

 although it is comparatively flat inland. The country reminded me very 

 much of the Province of Ontario, Canada, as I viewed it for the first time 

 from the car windows. The Danish forests are made up almost exclu- 

 sively of beech trees, which thrive better in that country than in any other 

 country in Europe. One notable feature of Denmark is that they have 

 no rivers, nor have they any large lakes. The Gudenaa is the longest of 

 their streams, and in this country it would be called a brook. Their 

 climate is cool. To this they may attribute part of their success in 

 dairying. 



Tlie Danish government takes an active interest in the dairy business 

 and gives liberal aid to secure instructors. In fact, the whole creamery 

 business of Denmark seems as if it were owned by one individual. Not- 

 withstanding the care and rigid examinations given to the butter, so that 

 it will be suited to the ICnglish market, it is not all perfect nor uniform. 

 I had the privilege of examining the butter at one of their semi-monthly 

 government contests, and I must say that there were several lots of very 

 inferior quality. I think, however, it was more luiiform than the same 

 quantity of butter exhibited in our country would have been. 



Denmark keeps a representative in England all the time looking after 

 the requirements of that market and keeping the makers at home posted. 

 They notify the dairymen and creamerymen by wire to send a tub of 

 butter to the experiment station at Copenhagen. This butter is sent from 

 the regular shipment that goes abroad and is held at Copenhagen ten 



