302 Report on the Dairy- Farming of the North-west of France. 
made bj systems which vary between that of Isigny, already 
described, to the churning of a mixture of cream and curd. In 
the most pronounced of the latter methods the milk is actually 
curdled by artificial means, so that to a certain extent curd 
and cream may rise together. In other cases the milk is not 
skimmed until after it has turned sour, which comes to nearly 
the same thing, as the souring of the milk causes the separation 
of a portion of the curd from the whey. The objects in view 
are to increase the quantity of so-called butter, and to obtain a 
constant supply of curd, which is a staple article of food for the 
Breton labourers who are fed on the farm, and indeed for people 
in more affluent circumstances. It need not be said that the money 
return from such an attempt to do two things together (namely, 
cream-rising and curd-separating), that ought to be done in 
succession, is not favourable to the pockets of those who follow 
it ; but the Breton is, more than any other Frenchman, obstinate 
in his adherence to old practices, which even time and tradition 
should allow to be more honoured in the breach than the ob- 
servance. 
The Buttek Trade. 
A most essential element in the French butter-trade consists 
of the middlemen, who bring the producer and the consumer 
together ; and the systematic, and even scientific, manner in 
which the collection, purification, packing, and exportation are 
carried out requires a brief notice to enable English and Irish 
dairy-farmers to understand the whole process by which their 
rivals are enabled to compete so successfully against them 
in their own markets. 
French dairy-farms, where the butter made is not good 
enough to go direct to Parisian or provincial private customers, 
are generally small in size ; and the quantity of butter made 
weekly on each is therefore inconsiderable. The butter is 
generally made twice a week in summer, and often not more 
than once a week in winter ; but, however many times a week 
it may be made on these farms, one making always takes place 
on the day preceding the holding of the local weekly fnarket. 
Each make of butter is wrapped in a clean linen cloth, and on 
a market-day * in Normandy and Brittany one may see scores 
* The number of markets and fairs in France is something beyond belief ; but 
so also arc the niimb(;r of vendors and the sraull quantity wliich each one tliinks it 
worth while to brin'^ to market. On this point, Arthur Young wrote in liis ijniphio 
way, in 1788: — " August 9Ui, Market-diiy. Coming out of the town I met at 
least an hundred asses, some loaded with aliag, otlu'rs a sack, but all apparently 
with a trilling burtlien, and swarms of men and women ; but a great proportion 
of all the labour of a country is idle iu the midst of harvest, to supply a town 
which ill England would be fed )>y of the ])i'opIe ; whenever this swarm of 
