L26 BOARD OF AGRICULTUKE. [Pub. Doc. 



so rapidly replaced those retiring : but there were several 

 hundred. The cases were few where one person offered 

 over 50 pounds. The best buyers worked at the rate of 

 L50 lots of butter per hour, and in two hours that day an 

 aggregate of over 100,000 pounds (or 50 tons) of fresh 

 (unsalted) Normandy butter arrived, was tested, graded, 

 sold, delivered and paid for. The sales of this town sonic- 

 times exeeed 60 tons on Mondays, but are less in quantity 

 on Fridays. The butter purchased was placed by the buyers 

 in 13 different grades with as many different prices, ranging 

 from 15 to 30 cents per pound, and averaging 24 or 25 

 cents. 



Most oi' the butter bought at these country markets in 

 Normandy is taken for the proprietors of large establish- 

 ments which are really blending factories, — a kind of butter 

 factory hardly known in America. One of the oldest and 

 best known oi' these is located at Carentan. It is a bio- 

 concern, employing at least 600 persons altogether, receiv- 

 ing 25 to 40 tons oi' butter a day in a dozen different 

 grades, which is mechanically blended, repacked and sold 

 in four commercial grades. Sales amount sometimes to 100 

 tons in one day, although ordinarily only about 30 tons. 

 The business of the year aggregates 9,000 to 10,000 tons of 

 butter, worth from $4,000,000 to S,"), 000, 000. 



South oi' Normandy is the old province of Brittany, 

 with its excellent little dairy cows, black and white and it-~ 

 entertaining and picturesque peasantry. But the dairying 

 oi' this region does not differ much in character from that oi' 

 Normandy. It is not as well conducted, and the butter 

 product ranks lower in quality and price. There is an 

 agricultural college with a dairy school annex in Brittany ; 

 and away to the west, not far from Brest, an excellent 

 practical school of dairying for the daughters oi' peasant 

 fanners. It is thoroughly a dairy maids' establishment. 



Should one travel still farther south in France, keeping 

 within ."id miles or so of the west coast, the old province oi' 

 Poitou would be entered, lying between the rivers Loire 

 and Grironde. In this district, and particularly in the de- 

 partments o( Deux-Sevres. Vendee, Charente and Lower 



