122 RURAL DENMARK 



From the drippings of the cans alone 200 lbs. Danish 

 of milk are collected daily, and at the time of my 

 visit in the autumn the weekly output of butter 

 was about 14,000 lbs. Danish, besides other pro- 

 ducts such as cheese, of which huge quantities are 

 manufactured. In short the business is immense, 

 and, so far as I am aware, unequalled by anything 

 of the same sort in England, which buys its output. 



Trifolium is a long, low building with the usual 

 platform on which are delivered the full cans that 

 come in by rail or cart. Director Damant, who 

 kindly showed me over the establishment, took me 

 first to a place where samples of milk are tested 

 thrice a fortnight to ascertain their fat percentage. 

 This is done in glass tubes arranged on electrically 

 rotated machines, but the exact process I cannot 

 explain. Here, too, sacks of chopped mangolds sent 

 by the members are analysed for their sugar values. 

 (I wonder how many English farmers test their root 

 crops in this fashion, and profit by the knowledge so 

 obtained in order to grow them better. Personally, I 

 confess that I have never done anything of the sort.) 



The milk on arriving in the dairy, where the 

 noise is terrific, is weighed in a tin vat and runs 

 thence into an apparatus where it is heated by steam 

 to 50 Celsius (or 122 Fahrenheit). Thence it goes 

 to the great separators. After separation the skim 

 is taken away in pipes, most of it to be sent back 

 to the farmers for pigs' food, while the cream is re- 

 heated to about ioo Celsius (or 212 Fahrenheit), then 

 cooled immediately and pumped into vats in another 

 room, where it stands twenty-four hours to ripen 

 before being made into butter on the following day. 

 In this room young women clothed in white dresses 



