236 THE DAIRYING INDUSTRY IN IRELAND. 



The foreign butter trade was also of considerable importance, and the 

 West Indies, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, etc., took a large quantity of Irish 

 butter mainly because the art of making butter of good keeping quality, 

 such as would not deteriorate on long sea voyages, was principally confined 

 to Ireland. Chaptal, a French writer on scientific agriculture, mentions that 

 the art of salting butter was better known in Ireland than in any other 

 country. The methods of butter making in Ireland varied considerably, 

 the most striking difference being between the methods in use in the 

 northern portion of the country and those practised in the South. Whilst 

 the whole of the milk was prepared for, and churned to extract, butter in 

 the North of Ireland, the Southern dairy farmer " set " the milk in vessels 

 and churned the cream only. There were strenuous advocates of both 

 methods, but the different districts kept to their systems until the coming of 

 the creamery system, which to a large extent revolutionised dairying all 

 over the country. The first attempts to systematise and improve dairying 

 in Ireland were made in Cork about the year 1770, and the Cork Butter 

 Exchange was established about this time for the purpose of regulating the 

 butter trade in the city. It is probable the first attempts at regulating the 

 butter trade in Cork originated through a desire to safeguard the 

 interests of the city in the tolls of the Cork Butter market. Very soon, how- 

 ever, the Butter Exchange was made an important factor in the dealings 

 between the butter maker, the butter merchant, and the butter exporter. 

 Mr. Maguire, in his " Notes on the Industrial Movement in Ireland, as illus- 

 trated by the National Exhibition of 1852," describes the Cork Butter 

 Weigh-House and its functions as follows : — 



" Every firkin of butter that passes through the Cork VVeigh-House — and 

 nearly every firkin that enters this city passes through it — is rigidly examined 

 and its quality accurately determined, and when this butter is received by the 

 foreign buyer he has a sufficient guarantee as to the character and quality of 

 the article in the well-known brand upon its cask. The farmer, the merchant, 

 and the foreign buyer are equally protected against fraud by the rigid system 

 of inspection which has rendered this market famous. 



" The inspector declares the exact quality of the article — whether it is 

 entitled to the first, or ought to be degraded to the sixth quality ; and the 

 market- -z>., the committee — fixes the price which the farmers ought to receive 

 and which the merchant must pay. Did it stop here, and were the local seller 

 and buyer alone protected from mutual injustice, the system would be sadly 

 deficient. But it does not. The brand of the market protects the foreign 

 dealer from the possible fraud of a dishonest merchant who might — that is, 

 who cou/d— without such vigilant inspection as is maintained to the very 

 moment of shipping the article from the quays, ' decant ' inferior butter into 

 high-brand firkins, and thus impose for once, at least, on the foreign dealer. 

 The committee of merchants are the body responsible to all parties for the 

 character of the Cork Butter Market, and it is their pride as well as their 

 interest to encourage honesty in dealing and to punish every attempt at fraud 

 with rigorous severity. 



'' Fully conscious of their responsibility to all classes, they have brought 

 the system of inspection to the greatest perfection, by the necessity of which 

 tedy have made it the interest of the farmer to improve the quality of his make, 

 anh to avoid the slightest attempt at fraud or adulteration, inasmuch as if his 

 butter be declared a 'first,' he is entitled to, say, 795. ; if 'third,' to 705-. ; if 

 ' fifth,' to 56.^. ; if ' sixth,' to 46.^. ; so that it is clearly his interest to devote 



