CATTLE AND DAIRY FARMING. 17 



manufacture, so that all the requisite conditions may be complied with. 



It may be said of the British market that it offers an almost un- 

 limited field for high and low grades of butter. As the Dutch and. Bel- 

 gians, with their imitation butter for the Belgians, it would also ap- 

 pear, largely manufacture oleomargarine for export to England will, 

 it is more than likely, be able to supply the low-grade product, we can 

 scarcely hope, even if we so desired, to compete for this trade. The 

 field for high-grade butter is, however, open to our dairy people, and 

 there is no good reason why they, with more favorable primary condi- 

 tions than can possibly exist in any of the European countries, should 

 not prepare and place upon the British market butter which would 

 stand on a par with the best Danish product. They should study the 

 reports on Danish dairy farming concerning this great industry, and 

 thus learn that the secret of Danish success lies altogether in comply- 

 ing with the laws governing success. If our dairy farmers essay foreign 

 markets at all, they should cater to the tastes of those markets, and it 

 will pay better, even at the expense of more labor and time, to export 

 first-class than inferior butter carelessly made, carelessly packed, and 

 carelessly placed on the markets. The 11,231,472 pounds of American 

 butter imported into the United Kingdom from the United States dur- 

 ing the year 1884 at the price received for Danish butter would have 

 yielded our dairy farmers nearly $750,000 more than was realized there- 

 from. This large sum can be legitimately charged to indifference on 

 the part of our dairy farmers. This is not the real cost of our indiffer- 

 ence, however, for had we catered for the British markets, after the 

 manner of the Danish dairy farmers, our exports would have been four- 

 fold what they were in 1884. Thus some idea may be formed of the 

 consequential damages which have resulted from our rernissness in this 

 one industry, which, as said before, is surrounded by more favorable con- 

 ditions in the United States than in any other country. 



In this connection, the attention of our dairy farmer is directed to 

 a report on the Irish butter trade, transmitted by the consul at Cork. 

 AF Cork is the chief center of the dairy interest of Ireland the butter 

 being almost wholly manufactured for the London market and as Irish 

 butter holds a very high place in English esteem, this report, with its 

 accompanying papers, is of special value. 



A table in this report gives the prices of the finest butter in the Cork 

 market for forty years, viz, 1841 to 1881, from which it appears that 

 during the decade ending with 1851 butter averaged 84 shillings per 

 hundred- weight (18.2 cents per pound) ; during the decade ending with 

 1861, 104 shillings per hundred- weight (22.6 cents per pound) ; during 

 the decade ending with 1871, 116 shilling per hundred- weight (26 cents 

 per pound) ; and during the decade ending with 1881, 131 shillings per 

 hundred-weight (27.9 cents per pound) ; an increase in the forty years of 

 47 shillings per hundred- weight (10.2 cents per pound). 



In 1881 Danish butter was valued in the English customs at 26.25 

 cents per pound; in the same year, as the report under consideration 

 shows, Irish butter sold in the Cork markets at 28.8 cents per pound. 

 The costs and charges incident to export must be added hereto to ar- 

 rive at an estimate of its value in the English market. These figures 

 would go to prove that Irish butter brings the highest price of all for- 

 eign butter in the London market. One of the inclosures in Consul 

 Piatt's report deals at length with "Irish preserved butter," the writer, 

 an expert in this product, claiming for this particular article great 

 keeping qualities. 



H. Ex. 51 2 



