Report on the Dairy-Farming of the North-west of France, 303 
and even hundreds of women in the market-place of the towns, 
standing in double rows facing each other, and each with a 
basket before her containing one, two, or more lumps of butter 
(larger or smaller according to circumstances), separately en- 
veloped in clean linen. This basket, or other baskets, may 
also contain a certain number of eggs, a few chicken (perhaps 
onlv a couple), some veal or pork, and any other marketable 
produce of the farm. 
Confining myself for the present to the butter, the next step 
in the process is the advent of the butter-merchants. Some of 
these buy for sale to their customers in the neighbourhood, but 
they take only the best-made butter fit for immediate consump- 
tion and suited to the local taste. The great commerce, how- 
ever, is made by the wholesale butter-merchants, or their 
" buyers," who taste, bargain, and at length buy little parcels 
of butter varying from half-a-dozen pounds or so upwards. The 
buyer has with him sundry large hampers, into which the sepa- 
rate lumps of butter are placed after they have been denuded 
of their linen wrappers, weighed, and paid for in coin of the 
realm. At the end of the day the merchant sends a greater or 
less number; of these hampers filled, and generally over-filled, 
weighing up to 200 lbs. each, carefully covered over and secured 
by means of linen and canvas, to his " fabrique," either by road 
or rail, and there is enacted the next stage of the process. 
As soon as possible after arrival at the factory {faln-ique^ the 
baskets are uncovered, and an experienced " hand " takes out 
each lump of butter separately. By the evidence of his senses 
of smell and taste, the former being generally sufficient, he 
classifies them, as a rule, into three qualities. Each quality is 
then dealt with separately, according to its needs for the market 
for which it is destined. 
The operations to which each quality of butter is subjected 
before packing are three, namely, kneading, washing, and 
salting. The kneading is continuous from the commencement 
of the washing to the end of the salting ; and it should be added 
that in many cases an intermediate process, namely, that of 
colouring, is found necessary to fit the butter for some markets, 
where the sentimental quality of colour is considered as essential 
as the practical qualities of taste and smell. 
Kneading has until recently been done almost entirely bv hand ; 
and even now in most small factories, and in a few large ones, 
the old method is practised. A long trough (Fig. 5, p. 304), 
having a hole fitted with a plug in the centre of its lowest part, 
is used in such cases, and strong men knead the butter with 
triflcis buzz in the market, I take a minute and vicious division of the soil for 
prraiitod." — Op. c:t . vol. i. p. 39. 
