DUTCH CATTLE 211 



but little, as the country is chiefly pasture, but such 

 ploughed land as I saw was admirably cultivated 

 and very clean. The cattle are large, massive 

 animals, with but little quality for meat production, 

 yet deep milkers, often giving twenty to twenty-four 

 quarts of milk per day. But it is of very inferior 

 quality for butter making, being greatly deficient in 

 cream. I believe a well-bred Guernsey or Jersey 

 cow would produce as much butter as two Dutch 

 cows, even if she were but half the size. This 

 accounts for the small number of Dutch cows im- 

 ported into England. They are almost entirely of 

 one type, black and white in colour, large frames, 

 with hard touch, and not very enticing looking. The 

 sheep are mostly long wools, rather light scrags, and 

 longer on the leg than ours. The Dutch and the 

 Danes are turning their attention to pigs and bacon- 

 curing, in which they succeed, and are exporting 

 largely in butter, bacon, and milk, to England. I 

 really love this country, and prefer the flat ' Cuyp ' 

 looking meadows, with the lazy cattle stretched 

 out on the rich pastures, the homely and industrious 

 people, and their stolid and imperturbable, yet 

 pleasing and agreeable manners, to the majestic 

 scenery and rugged mountains of the Tyrol and 

 Switzerland. The history and antiquities, the art 

 treasures — including the masterpieces of Franz Hals 

 — cathedral and bulb-farms of Haarlem, which I 

 visited, tempt me to prolong the account of my 

 Dutch impressions. But I must perforce dismiss 

 the subject with a word or two about the bulbs. 



p 2 



