ON AGRICULTURE TO IRELAND 95 



creameries for the year ending 31st December 1904 was 10-22d. 

 per lb. In all the Irish creameries the separated milk and butter 

 milk is returned, and the price paid for the milk is exclusive of 

 these. The average price paid for the milk was about 3|d. per 

 gallon. The value of the separated milk and butter milk would 

 add about another penny to this, making the total value of the 

 milk 4f d. per gallon delivered at the creamery door. During the 

 period under review, on the average it cost l'36d, to make and 

 sell each pound of butter, which is, roughly speaking, about |d, 

 per gallon of milk required. The cost varies greatly at the 

 different creameries, some being about double that of others. As 

 a rule, the larger creameries work more economically than the 

 smaller ones. 



Effect of Season on Supplies 



Notwithstanding the number of co-operative and proprietary 

 creameries in Ireland, the bulk of the butter is still produced 

 during the grass season. Probably no country in the world is so 

 well situated as Ireland for the production of grass butter, but in 

 the manufacture of any article the cost of production has not alone 

 to be taken into account. There must also be taken into account 

 the selling price of the product. In Ireland, as in some parts of 

 Britain, the cheapest food for cows is probably pasture, but for 

 that very reason the season of pasture is also the time when 

 butter is most plentiful and lowest in price. The probability^ 

 therefore, is that the margin between cost of production and value 

 when produced is no greater during the grass season than in mid- 

 winter. 



The principal markets for Irish butter are the large towns of 

 England and Scotland. There the demand for butter is constant, 

 and is probably greater in winter than in summer. Creameries 

 such as those in Ireland, which produce only during the grass 

 season, compete under great disadvantages in these markets. 

 AVIiolesale merchants, in their desire to meet the requirements of 

 their customers, naturally desire to buy from those who supply 

 them steadily all the year, and fight shy of those with a flood of 

 butter at one season when it is little wanted, and none at another 

 when everybody wants it. Danish, Swedish, and Siberian butters 

 come in large quantities during winter, and shippers of it get a 

 hold of the wholesale merchants at that time. In early summer, 

 when butter becomes more plentiful, wholesale merchants are very 

 unwilling to take on new customers and leave off the old, knowing 

 full well that the new will only continue producing for a limited 

 period. The consequence is, that new customers can only effect 

 sales at a reduced price, and as most Irish creameries are in the 

 same position in this respect, each forces the price down on the 

 top of the other, and for a time Irish butter falls to a lower value 

 than is warranted by its quality. This goes on year after year, 

 and will continue to go on, new customers being found the one 

 year and lost the next, till more is done to produce a fair quantity 

 all the year round. 



