No. 4.] UNITED STATES DAIRYING. 141 



ports lire uncommonly large, and there is appearing, at least 

 at times, a surplus of Ijuttcr of high grade. Exports are 

 needed for relief, and more has been done in this line during 

 the past year or so than ever before. But this has been 

 made i)()ssible only by the extremely low prices which have 

 prevailed. American butter has no fixed reputation abroad, 

 and exports have never been regular enough to establish a 

 foreign market. Under present conditions, and while our 

 l)utter fails to compete abroad with the Danish and other 

 high grades, it is only when the price of good butter falls 

 below nineteen cents at New York and Boston that buyers 

 for export are likely to a[)poar, and as soon as creamery 

 grades reach twenty cents this outlet appears to be closed. 

 Much as butter exports are to be desired from our Atlantic 

 and Pacific ports no such trade yet exists of a regular, 

 reliable or satisfactory character, as to either quantity or 

 quality. 



Our foreign cheese trade is in even worse plight, because, 

 having once been in a flourishing condition, it has been al- 

 most destroyed by senseless and shameful practices. Manu- 

 facturers and merchants, from avaricious motives, have sent 

 abroad during the last few years large quantities of low- 

 grade and counterfeit cheese, which has disgusted British 

 buyers and ruined the former excellent reputation of our 

 cheese. The result is that, instead of sending away half of 

 our season's output to meet foreign demands, as was done 

 for a time, we now find a market abroad for less than one- 

 fourth of the yearly cheese product. This is particularly 

 humiliating, because Canada has gained all we have lost. 

 By confining her manufacture to strictly honest, full-cream 

 cheese, constantly improving in quality, Canada has won the 

 place formerly held in the British markets for cheese from 

 the United States. • She now exports annually as much as 

 this country ever did, and our exports of cheese are less 

 than those of Canada were sixteen or seventeen years ago. 

 At the same time, our domestic markets in many parts of 

 the country have been flooded with fraudulent cheese to 

 such an extent that consumption has greatly decreased, and 

 our home cheese trade has been generally demoralized. Ex- 

 tremely low prices have ruled for even the best product. 



