Swedish Dairy Industry. 



493 



milk required; and 340 are co-operative dairies. These latter 

 would appear to be increasing rapidly, and, it would seem, 

 at the expense of the other classes. The total amount of 

 milk converted into butter and cheese by these dairies is 

 reckoned to have been about 175,000,000 gallons in 1896, 

 most of which was made into butter, the production of this 

 comestible amounting to some 512,000 cwts. 



The greater portion of this butter is exported to England 

 either directly or through Denmark. The cheese, of which 

 nearly 150,000 cwts. — whether whole or skim-milk cheese — 

 were made in 1896, is consumed in the country, some 2,000 or 

 3,000 cwts. only being exported. The imports into Sweden 

 were on the average of the three years 1894-96, 15,000 cwts. 

 of butter, and 4,500 cwts. of cheese. 



With regard to the exports of butter, it appears from the 

 Swedish returns for 1895 that 335 tons of butter were sent to 

 Norway, 8,270 tons to Denmark, and 15,450 tons to Great 

 Britain. These exports were valued at nearly;^ 100 per ton. The 

 British trade returns for 1896 show that in this latter year 

 some 16,200 tons were received direct from Sweden, or rather 

 more than one-tenth of our total importation of butter ; while, 

 in addition, Mr. Herbert states that 8,150 tons of the butter 

 we received from Denmark were of Swedish origin. Only 

 two countries (Denmark and France) ship more butter to this 

 country than does Sweden. Of other dairy products, Sweden 

 also supplied Great Britain (in direct trade), in 1896, with 

 45 cwts. of margarine, 16 cwts. of cheese, 140,000 cwts. of 

 bacon, and 1 9,000 great hundreds of eggs ; all these quan- 

 tities, however, representing but a very small fraction of 

 our total imports of these commodities. 



Most dairies use separiitors driven by steam-power, but 

 in some the Swartz process of separating the cream by 

 m.eans of ice is employed. In all exporting dairies the 

 cream is pasteurised, and in most instances is soured with 

 butter-milk or pure cultures. The butter is churned in 

 Holstein churns, and generally packed in casks. It is 

 despatched once a week to Malmo or Gothenburg, refrige- 

 rated compartments being used in the hot season. 



The co-operative dairies are the largest, the number of 



