998 The Danish System of. Cattle Breeding, [march, 



THE DANISH SYSTEM OF CATTLE BREEDING. 1 

 Peter Aug. Morkeberg, 



Live Stock Commissioner to the Danish Government. 



Denmark is mainly an agricultural country, and the popu- 

 lation has for centuries been chiefly occupied in agriculture. 

 During the first three-quarters of the last century the 

 growing and export of corn formed the chief source of income 

 for the country, and at that time cattle played an inferior 

 part. About the year 1850 dairy-farming began to come into 

 prominence, at first on the large estates, of which there are 

 not very many, and afterwards on some of the smaller 

 holdings of a hundred acres and less, where the owners 

 moved with the times. Two-thirds of the Danish soil is 

 owned by peasant proprietors of holdings of an average size 

 of 90 acres, but in the beginning dairy-farming did not pay 

 as well on these small holdings as on the large estates, 

 because butter produced in small quantities did not fetch as 

 good a price. 



Introduction of Co-operation in Dairying. — It was not till 

 the middle of the eighties that dairy-farming became a general 

 practice. At that time the centrifugal cream separator 

 was introduced, and co-operation was applied to dairy- 

 ing. Co-operative dairies were built one after another 

 throughout the country with amazing rapidity, and in con- 

 sequence milk had the same value, whether from a single 

 cow or from a herd consisting of a couple of hundred cows. 

 All Danish farmers thus became interested in procuring the 

 most productive cattle and in tending and feeding them well, 

 so as to produce large quantities of milk at the lowest cost. 

 From that time dairy-farming has been the chief source of 

 income in Denmark, and the work of improving the quality 

 of the cattle so as to obtain the greatest return has been 

 carried on with great energy. 



Breeds of Cattle. — Originally there were two distinct breeds 

 of cattle in Denmark, the Black and White Jutland and the 



1 Abstract of Paper read at the Winnipeg meeting of the British Association, 

 1909. 



