130 MAY IN DENMARK 



One thing the stranger may notice with surprise 

 in this the premier dairy country in the world. 

 Nowhere else has the craft of producing the very best 

 butter been brought to such perfection ; nowhere else 

 has practical instruction in the theory and essentials 

 of dairying been so deeply instilled into the farmers 

 and peasantry, as British farmers and peasants have 

 learned to their cost. No town in the world can boast 

 such a copious supply of pure cheap milk as is poured 

 into Copenhagen through Dr. Busck's Mcelkeforsyning 

 (Dairy Supply Company). Yet in all the landscape not 

 a cow is to be seen in the fields. No ; because it is not 

 yet mid- May, and it is only during four months in the 

 year that the herds are turned out to graze. The 

 remaining eight they spend in their stalls. We had 

 occasion to visit several herds, and very beautiful some 

 of them were, composed of red Zeeland cows, confined 

 in some cases to the number of a hundred and fifty in 

 a single building, scrupulously clean. Undoubtedly it 

 is a disadvantage that the climate makes such long 

 confinement necessary, a disadvantage from which the 

 British farmer is exempt ; yet he has allowed the Dane 

 a long start in dairying. He may as well give up the 

 competition, unless he is prepared to follow humbly in 

 his rival's wake, and treat the business scientifically. 

 It was humiliating to hear from the tenant of Rosendal 

 that half of his butter was consigned direct to 

 Manchester, the remainder going to Paris, as he 

 explained in the course of a picturesque middag-mad 

 at which he entertained us. 



