iqo A FARMER'S YEAR 



pound, plus one penny, I cannot make butter pay — indeed it costs 

 more than this to manufacture. 



If, instead of producing an average of about sixty pounds a 

 week, I could turn out, let us say, two hundred, things would be 

 better, for then I might enter into a contract at a more remunera- 

 tive figure in London or some other large market. But with the 

 amount of land that I farm this is just what I cannot do, since to 

 undertake to deliver a certain quantity weekly, and then, owing to 

 an unexpected failure with the cows or the prevalence of drought, 

 to be unable to supply it, would prove embarrassing. Therefore 

 I have to be content with local custom. Of this I have plenty ; 

 indeed, could I supply twice the weight, I believe that I should 

 have no difficulty in disposing of my stuff. Only if the market falls 

 in the neighbourhood, buyers not unnaturally expect to get the 

 benefit of the drop, and so it comes about that the producers must 

 at certain seasons of the year deliver at a loss. The explanation 

 of this, as of all our other troubles, is to be found in the vast 

 importations of Danish and other inferior butters made up in co- 

 operative creameries from cows fed on practically unlimited pastures. 

 These butters can be retailed at a price with which we English 

 farmers are unable to compete.. What processes they go through 

 before they appear upon the British breakfast table I know not, 

 but if all accounts are true, and we have seen plenty of them lately 

 in the newspapers, especially with reference to Scandinavian 

 products, they seem to be sufficiently disagreeable. 



A few years ago I travelled in Brittany, and observed the 

 peasant farms there, whence, as I understand, much butter is 

 collected, to be sorted into grades and worked up by dealers for the 

 British market. The result of my studies was that for my own part 

 I should prefer not to eat the butter gathered from those farms. 

 But provided that the article is pleasant to the eye, agreeable to 

 the taste, and cheap, our public cares nothing for the cleanliness 

 or otherwise of its place of origin. Cheapness, and nothing but 

 cheapness, is what they consider. Were it rank [)oison — which I 

 believe it sometimes is— they would still eat it, provided it was 



