Dairy-Farming in the Netherlands. 
527 
about 1000 casks are sold every market-day by what we call 
" Dutch auction," and about an e(jual quantity is consigned 
direct to the merchants and does not go on the market at all. 
This latter consignment is marked as to quality, cask by cask, 
by the merchants to whom it is consigned, and they pay for it 
at the price which the same qualities fetch by auction on the 
public market. Complaints are frequently made by the farmers 
as to the marking of their butter by the merchants, and these 
have recently led to the establishment of a Farmer's Association, 
of which there is a branch in most villages, and the members of 
which send their butter to the society's agent at the market- 
town for sale by public auction. This Association has acquired 
such strength in Frieslarld, that the merchants undertake to 
pay for direct consignments the same price that the farmers 
would have realised if they had sent their butter to be sold 
through the agency of the Farmer's Association. 
Weighing on the market is done under the the supervision of 
Government officers, who also have jurisdiction over the con- 
struction and branding of the kegs. On an average each farmer 
sends his week's make to the nearest market-town, consisting of 
one or two kegs. In October, 1879, the price at Sneek was about 
100s. per cwt. for fine butter, and I was told that on the London 
market it would fetch 134a'. ; the diflference would cover freight, 
risk, commission, and merchant's profit. 
Wheij-Butter is made chiefly for household purposes, on 
farms where the principal object of the dairy is cheese-making. 
The whey is placed in large wooden tubs, and eventually 
skimmed, after having stood two or three days or more. The 
whey-cream is churned in the almost universal piston churn by 
the almost ubiquitous dog, and butter comes as a rule in about 
an hour and a half. Its after-treatment is the same as that 
adopted for cream-butter or whole-milk butter in the several 
districts. 
The Dutch, at least the women, are proverbially fond of 
using water for cleansing purposes, and of spending a large 
portion of their time in scrubbing and otherwise cleaning 
everything that belongs to them. Their dairy utensils, with 
the exception of the copper milk-pitchers, are almost always 
constructed of wood, often with brass hoops. They are generally, 
mirabile dictu, painted blue outside and white inside, and the 
only probable explanation that I could find of the persistent 
use of so pernicious a material as paint by so practical a people 
as the Dutch, was, that it gave them abundant opportunities 
for exercising their ruling passion for scrubbing, which they 
really seem to regard as a kind of athletic sport. Vigorous 
efforts, however, are now being made by the Provincial Agri- 
