DENMARK. 497 



The Danish butter thus being placed at the head of the list as regards 

 value and at considerably higher rate than its competitors, next com- 

 ing France and Belgium, thereafter the United States, and last of all 

 Holland j the low values for this country being again influenced as be- 

 fore remarked, by the large amount of spurious butter included in the 

 returns. The total estimated value of these butter exports from the 

 above-mentioned five countries in 1883 closely approached $48,000,000. 



Whilst passing these figures under review it must not, however, be 

 forgotten that the estimated values of these tables are based upon the 

 aggregate imports from each country, and that it chiefly tends to shoAV 

 that the high position held by this Kingdom is mainly owing to her ex- 

 ports consisting on the whole of a high standard class of butter ; whilst 

 a far greater proportion of inferior butter is included in the exports from 

 the other countries, and it must on no account be taken for granted from 

 these tables that Danish butter at all times commands the highest prices 

 in the English markets, as it is a well known fact that it by no means 

 obtains the prices paid for the fresh, sweet, unsalted classes of English 

 and French butter. 



From France the imports may be said to consist of two kinds. The 

 one coming from the northern part of that country is sweet and unsalted 

 and made up in pieces of 2 to 3 pounds weight, packed in small boxes of 

 willow bark, whereas the other sorts are from the collected purchases 

 from the smaller land -owners throughout the country, but salted and 

 packed in ordinary butter casks. This sweet, unsalted butter of England 

 and France can at all times command in the English markets the higher 

 price of 4 to 6 cents per pound above that of the very finest quality of 

 Danish butter. 



In the latter case a small quantity of this sweet, unsalted butter, packed 

 in the same way as the French article, has likewise been exported from 

 this country ; but the long sea route and the present restricted steam 

 intercourse with the English ports, have prevented any great develop- 

 ment in the manufacture thereof, whilst the French producers, being on 

 the other hand favored by a short sea route and almost daily steam 

 communications, are enabled to secure the full advantages of these ex- 

 treme prices. The sweet, unsalted description of butter is almost ex- 

 clusively directed to the great London market, whereas in the great 

 Manchester market and other large northern towns in England, Danish, 

 French (salted), Dutch, and American butter is chiefly to be met with. 



^'ithout question the sweet, unsalted butter must be considered as the 

 finest and most renumerative description for export, and which the 

 producers in the northern parts of France are fully alive to. Here it is 

 equally felt that more satisfactory results could be obtained for the Dan- 

 ish butter if it could only be exported with all safety in the sweet, un- 

 salted state, but, unfortunately, it is too liable to injury during the 

 lengthened period of transport under the present restricted means of 

 steam communication between the two countries. The great importance 

 of a more rapid and more frequent intercourse with the great London 

 market is now so keenly felt here by the agricultural classes that pe- 

 titions have been sent in from all the agricultural societies to the home 

 ministry for subsidies in aid of proposed line of steamers to run from 

 the port of Esbjen, on the west coast of Jutland, with a biweekly serv- 

 ice. It is calculated that a sea voyage from that port to London may 

 be accomplished on ordinary occasions within thirty hours, and that, 

 with an appropriate regulation of the time tables for the different rail- 

 ways in connection with Esbjen, that the entire transport can be made 

 in such short space of time as to allow this description of unsalted but- 

 H. Ex. 51 32 



