284 Report on the Dairy-Farming of the North-west of France. 
the small farmers, as it makes the two or three children, who 
constitute a large family in France, work together for the 
common benefit. To this fact must in some degree be ascribed 
the success of the French farmers in producing butter, and 
especially soft kinds of cheese, of delicate flavour, and therefore 
possessing a high market-value. Under no other circumstances, 
probably, would so much care be bestowed on the making, 
and such constant supervision in the curing, to say nothing of 
the delicacy in packing, of these highly susceptible and easily 
perishable articles of commerce. 
After I have described, in the reports which I propose to 
write on French agriculture, the results of the national system 
of laws and customs on the cultivation of the soil, and upon 
the owner, occupier, and labourer, it may be useful to endeavour 
to connect causes and effects, and to contrast the merits of the 
French system with those of our own. At present, however, it 
appears to me more profitable to confine myself to a simple 
description of the facts relating to dairy-farming as I have 
gathered them, especially as the improvement of our butter, and 
of our dairy-products generally, has become one of the most 
pressing agricultural questions of the day. 
Cattle. 
The breed of cattle seen almost universally in the North-west 
of France is the Norman in its several varieties, the purest 
and best of which is known as the Cotentin. In colour these 
cattle are generally brown, red, or brindled interwoven with 
white, and with a tendency to a white face, which, without 
being characteristic, is often observed. They have the distinc- 
tive characters of a good milking breed, but are somewhat 
large-boned and thick-skinned. The size of the animals varies 
very much with the physical features and the fertility of the 
country, and the more or less advanced state of its agriculture. 
In the more hilly districts, and also on the elevated plains of 
arable land, where the farms are small and the food of the cows 
poor in quality and not over abundant in quantity, the 'cows 
are small and do not fetch more than from 10/. to 15?. each. 
But in the rich grass-land districts of the Pays d'Augc and 
the Bessin the cows are worth from 20/. to 25/. each, and on 
the average give that sum as an annual return in butter and ofial 
from a yield of 500 to GOO gallons of milk, while the best 
yiakers of the celebrated Camembert cheese can show a gross 
return of an additional 50 per cent, on the higher figure. 
C(msi(lering the value of the milk and its products, it is not 
to be wondered at that the ordinary farmer shrinks from tlu? 
