Report 071 the Dairy-Inarming of the North-west of France. 297 
Butter-making. 
In France, as elsewhere, several distinct methods of butter- 
making exist in the different parts of the country, and it might 
interest the curious in such matters if I described each of them 
in detail. From the primitive method of shaking cream in a 
wide-mouthed bottle, which I saw in the Medoc, to the most 
refined method pursued in the best districts of Normandy, there 
is almost every gradation. But, for practical purposes, it will 
be sufficient to describe the types of manufacture by which are 
made the Normandy and the Brittany butters which come into 
our markets and realize higher prices than the English product. 
It would be idle to deny that several factors enter into the 
production of good butter. As a rule, dairy-farmers believe that 
the actual process of butter-making has little or nothing to do 
with it; but all admit that the most scrupulous cleanliness is 
absolutely essential. The bad quality which is too often charac- 
teristic of English and Irish butter is ascribed to various causes: — 
to the wet season having produced bad food, to bad ventilation, 
bad water, a thunderstorm, and all sorts of causes, preventible and 
non-preventible, to the exclusion of what is, in my judgment, the 
general cause, namely, inattention to the true principles of butter- 
making. No doubt, bad or unsuitable food will taint the milk, 
and that milk will produce rank butter, and the other reasons 
usually given will generally have the effect ascribed to them. 
But, after all, why is it that so much bad butter is made w here 
and when none of these unfavourable conditions exist ? I have 
heard landowners complain that they cannot get good butter, such 
as they get in a Parisian hotel, made at their home dairy, where 
economy and profit are secondary considerations ; and I have even 
heard farmers declare this year (1878) that one of the attractions 
of Paris, which they discovered by going to see the Exhibition, 
was the delicious French butter ! Individually, I should not 
place French butter so high as Danish for keeping purposes, but 
as fresh butter, especially in summer, it has a delicate and slightly 
nutty flavour which almost every one appreciates, although ex- 
perts judging of it as an article of commerce would sometimes 
pronounce it " weak." The main point for the farmer is that 
the best French butter makes a very high price, and that a slight 
difference in the process of manufacture sensibly affects its 
market value. 
Isif/nij Method. — In the Bessin district of Normandy, where 
the premier French butter (known as Isigny butter) is made, 
the process is as follows : — In this district the cows are milked 
morning and evening, and in some cases three times a day, into 
jug-shaped vessels, made of copper lined with tin, and holding 
