Franco-Siciss Dairy-Farming. 
89 
owner of a bull, who is probably a wealthy peasant, usually 
charges one franc (ninepence halfpenny) for service. In a fev/ 
villages the community combine together and buy a good bull, 
which serves sixty cows ; for the service of every cow four 
shillinjrs is paid. This rate does not pay expenses, and the 
subscribers have to make up the difference. Thus, only 
comparatively rich peasants are able to co-operate, and it re- 
mains to be seen whether the system will extend. On the 
French side of the frontier I saw no co-operation of this sort. 
Purchasers from the south of Germany come to this part of 
France, and annually take away many cows, which are pro- 
bably sold in the Fatherland as Swiss bred. 
The milk is disposed of by means of communal dairies, intro- 
duced at the beginning of the century from the remoter parts of 
Switzerland. The villagers form themselves into a Society, 
erect a dairy, and engage a dairyman to make cheese and 
butter at the fixed wage of 250 francs (10/.) per annum, with 
perquisites, or 100 francs (4/.) for the winter season, lasting 
from the 9th of October to the 31st of Mav. A register of 
the milk sent daily, morning and evening, to the dairy is kept ; 
and he who on any morning has the most milk to his credit 
takes the cheese, butter, butter-mlik, &c., as well as the cash 
for milk sold and cheese made from all the milk brought in 
by the members for that morning and the previous evening. 
On the following day, the nest man who has the most to his 
credit receives all the produce and cash. 
As the cheeses are not taken away at once, but left in the 
dairy to be pressed and cured, a little numbered wooden label is 
fixed on the side of the cheese as soon as it is made into shape, — 
the number on the label tallying with the owner's number on 
the register. 
This is the old Swiss system, and is, no doubt, well adapted 
for cheese-making, and thus utilising the milk in a more profit- 
able way than the peasants individually would be able to do. 
But it has been found that the poor man who onlv sent a little 
milk daily to the dairy, had to wait a long time for his quantum 
to accumulate until it stood highest on the register, and he 
thus occasionally did not get any return from his cow before the 
end of the season. This objection, added to the not infrequent 
difficulty of obtaining a good dairyman, has brought about a 
modification in the dairy-system on the Swiss, but not yet on 
the French, side of the frontier. Instead of the village com- 
munity engaging a dairyman to work for wages, thov make a 
contract with one who buys the milk from the members of the 
community at a fixed rate (13 to 14 centimes per litre = 5|f/. 
to 6^t?. per gallon), and who pays cash fortnightly or monthly. 
