32 RURAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



to the milk and the meat. This second distinctive feature 

 has led to differences almost as marked as the first. Let 

 us, in the first place, consider the milk produce in the two 

 countries. France possesses four millions of cows, and 

 the United Kingdom three millions. But three-fourths 

 of the French cows are not really milch cows, and almost 

 all the English ones are. The exigencies of labour re- 

 quiring a strong and hardy race, agree badly with the 

 condition favourable to an abundant supply of milk. 

 Bad food, want of care, absence of all precaution in the 

 selection of reproducers, and probably also, in the most 

 southern districts, the drought and heat of the climate, 

 these complete what labour had already begun. In those 

 parts of France where the attention of breeders has been 

 directed, from local circumstances, to the production of 

 milk, results equal, and often superior, to those obtained in 

 England show that, generally speaking, we are placed in 

 as favourable a position for this kind of husbandry as our 

 neighbours ; but if our milch cows are as good, and some- 

 times better than theirs, they are not so widely diffused. 

 There is no breed of cows in England superior appa- 

 rently to our Flemish, Norman, and Breton cows, for the 

 quantity and quality of their milk, nor for the propor- 

 tionate return in milk for the quantity of food consumed. 

 As to dairy produce, if English cheese is in general 

 superior to ours, French butter is better than English; 

 there is nothing in England to be compared with the 

 better qualities of butter made in Brittany and Nor- 

 mandy. In spite of these unquestionable advantages, 

 the total produce of the English cows in milk, butter, 

 and cheese, far exceeds that of the French, although the 

 latter are more numerous, and in certain districts as good 

 or even better milkers. It is the generality of a practice 

 only which can produce great results in agriculture ; and 



