DIFFICULTIES OF DAIRY FARMING 45 



range of profits, especially as regards butter, the price of 

 which practically regulates the price of milk and of 

 cheese. Foreign butter gets the market partly from 

 cheapness, but still more from uniformity of quality and 

 appearance. 



Thus, in Berkshire village stores, Italian butter holds 

 the field at ifd lower price.i 



" It is not so much quality as uniformity which is re- 

 quired, because the large dealers will not look at people 

 who merely sell butter, but not of uniform quality." 



This competition may, to a certain extent, be met by 

 a thorough practical and scientific organisation of the 

 dairy industry. 



Then there are the physical, and to some extent legal, 

 difficulties in the way of laying down land profitably to 

 grass, dealt with fully elsewhere.^ 



One of the most serious of all the difficulties is the 

 prevalence of tuberculosis and the great losses therefrom, 

 which is separately discussed in Chapter XVI. 



In several districts buildings are most defective. In 

 spite of the efforts of some landowners, the equipment 

 for dairy work is very imperfect in Essex. In Lanca- 

 shire, cowsheds are cramped and unhealthy, and pro- 

 mote the spread of tuberculosis. " The buildings have 

 not been changed or increased with the change in the 

 system of farming from corn growing to dairying." In 

 one district an inspection disclosed the fact that only one 

 out of twelve farmers had satisfactory premises. Butter 

 has often to be made in kitchens, and butter and cheese 

 kept in sleeping rooms. There is also much complaint 

 of unsatisfactory and unhealthy water supply. 



Other difficulties are the scarcity and dearness of 

 skilled labour, which retards the development of dairy- 

 ing, especially in districts hitherto mainly arable. 



There is also a frequent complaint that land is deterio- 

 rated by constant use for milk or cheese production. 

 Possibly a certain proportion of farmers in these hard 

 times try to lessen loss, or increase profit, by starving 

 ' Lord Wantage, Letter to Mr Shaw Lefevre, November 1895. 

 * Pages 48, 49 and 199, etc. 



