THE UNITED KINGDOM. 229 



BUTTER INDUSTRY OF IRELAND. 



REPORT BY CONSUL FIATT, OF COIiF 



In my report on the credit and trade system in the south of Ireland 

 published in No. 43 of Consular Reports, I mentioned the butter trade 

 as the principal one identified with Cork. 



It has more than once, since I forwarded that report, occurred to me 

 that a special report on the butter industry and trade in Southern Ire- 

 land would not only be interesting to our people at large, but might 

 afford some suggestions whereby our many countrymen interested in 

 dairy farming, as well as those dealing in dairy products, would bo 

 benefited. 



Accordingly, as giving full information regarding the butter indus- 

 try in Ireland, and especially in the south of Ireland, as well as discuss- 

 ing the relative condition of this local industry as compared with the 

 same industry in other countries, stating the dm wbacks under which it 

 labors, and suggesting the proper steps to be taken for their removal 

 and for the improvement of this staple industry of Southern Ireland, I 

 inclose a copy of the evidence given last June, before a special commit- 

 tee of the British House of Commons, by \Villiam J. Lane, esq., of Cork. 



Mr. Lane has contributed directly to one or two reports which I have 

 heretofore made on trade between the United States and Ireland, &c. 

 lie is a gentleman of great intelligence and enterprise, himself a butter 

 merchant of large experience, one of the principal promoters of the Cork 

 Exhibition of 1883, and likely to be widely known henceforth in the 

 politics of Southern Ireland, being one of the newly chosen members of 

 Parliament of the Nationalist party from the county of Cork. To Mr. 

 Lane's statement, which relates to, illustrates, and discusses the dairy 

 and butter industry at large, I add a report on the butter trade of Cork, 

 explaining the advantages of the climate and soil in Munster for the 

 production of butter, presenting various interesting statistics in con- 

 nection with the local butter manufacture and trade, describing the 

 customs and methods of the Cork Butter Exchange, giving the price of 

 butter for a long series of years, &c., specially prepared and furnished 

 for my use by T. J. Clanchy, esq., another prominent butter merchant 

 of the city, who is mentioned in Mr. Lane's statement, and who is par- 

 ticularly identified with the trade in canned butter. Mr. Clanchy has 

 obtained gold and other medals at the Paris, Calcutta, and Melbourne 

 Exhibitions, during recent years, over all competitors, for his hermeti- 

 cally sealed canned butter, and contributed to the consular exhibit from 

 this district last year at New Orleans a full display of his goods, which 

 I think must have attracted the attention of such visitors as were inter- 

 ested in the dairy products of the United States. 



In connection with the subject of canned butter, it may be well to 

 direct the attention of those in our country so interested to the oppor- 

 tunity which, I am told, exists for a large development of American 

 enterprise with respect to this class of butter. 



AVi thin seven or eight years France, Germany, and Denmark have, 

 by the adoption of the system of packing butter in hermetically sealed 

 wins, each containing 1, 2, 3, 7, 14, or 24 pounds of butter, secured the 

 entire, or about the entire, trade of supplying the ships of the world, I 

 believe that the American creamery butter is eminently suitable for this 

 particular branch of the export butter trade. If this butter were packed 



