io COMMERCIAL ASPECTS OF MILK-SUPPLY 



the English dairy farmer with the high price of labour and higher 

 rent, as compared with that in Ireland, the making of butter would 

 mean the highroad to ruin. 



Then, again, at a luncheon of the North Ribblesdale 

 Agricultural Society one of the speakers admitted 

 that ' something ought to be done ' to compete more 

 effectually with Denmark ; but he found that ' no doubt 

 there were many difficulties in the way. If,' he con- 

 tinued, ' you had a quart of cream, you could only make 

 a pound of butter out of it. If you sold the quart of 

 cream you got is. 6d. for it in Settle and 2s. 6d. in 

 Bradford, but you only got is. id. for the pound 

 of butter.' 



Not only did the farmers find it to their interest 

 to sell the fresh milk as such, but the greatly increased 

 consumption, as the food-value of milk came to be 

 more appreciated, and the better means provided for 

 its distribution, by means of the railways, led to a 

 great expansion of the milk industry, which has now, 

 as I have said, become a very big enterprise indeed. 



According to a report drawn up by a committee of 

 the Royal Statistical Society appointed to inquire into 

 the statistics available as a basis for an estimate of the 

 production of meat and milk in the United Kingdom 

 (presented in June, 1904), the total annual production 

 of milk available for consumption, in one form or 

 another, may be put at 1,723,000,000 gallons, distributed 

 as follows : Consumed as milk, 620,000,000 gallons ; 

 used in the making of butter, 944,000,000 gallons ; 

 ditto, cheese, 153,000,000 gallons ; ditto, condensed 

 milk, etc., 6,000,000 gallons. The annual production 

 of butter in the United Kingdom is estimated by the 

 same authority at 160,550 tons, and that of cheese at 

 68,300 tons. From these figures it would appear that, 

 notwithstanding the large sale of new milk, and not- 



