FARMING IN DENMARK 181 



conditions prevailing on many of the Danish farms do 

 not at all commend themselves to our ideas. 



For instance, the cows are kept too hot and 

 without sufficient ventilation, the manure-tanks and 

 muck-heaps might sometimes be better disposed, there 

 are too many flies in the piggeries, and so forth. Also 

 the general aspect of the places is often untidy, owing 

 largely to the absence of fences, while the majority of 

 them lack that Christmas-card kind of picturesqueness 

 which we associate with the English farmstead. 



These are their drawbacks, but here, as usual, there 

 is something to be said on the other side. Thus, 

 except for the matter of tuberculosis, which probably 

 is fostered by the closeness of the byres, the unhealthy 

 condition of some of them, if they are unhealthy, does 

 not greatly matter, since the milk produced there goes 

 straight to the factory, where it is sterilised by heat, 

 which kills tuberculous and any other germs it may 

 contain. Moreover, such milk as is intended for 

 consumption in the towns witness the Copenhagen 

 Milk-supply Company as the reader will be aware, 

 is produced under the most perfect conditions pos- 

 sible. Upon how many milk farms in England are 

 Mr. Busck's regulations, or anything like them, strictly 

 carried out ? 



Putting aside these matters of the doubtful state 

 of some of the byres and of the untidiness, it can 

 scarcely be questioned that in this way or in that 

 the hard-working Dane gets more out of his land 

 than does the average English farmer. He keeps 

 more cattle on a given acreage, he farms more inten- 

 sively, he manures with greater skill and care. The 

 liquid which we allow to run away is, for instance, used 

 to the last drop. The average English farmer set 



