322 Experiences of a Scotsman on the Essex Clays. 
butter— as Suffolk was at one time celebrated for cheese. In 
Mrs. Beeton's Booh of Household Management, it is stated that 
Epping butter is the kind most esteemed in London ; and I 
remember learning out of my geography at school, more than 
twenty years ago, that Epping was " famous for butter." These 
statements, however, must have been traditions descended from 
the ancients, for, so far as I am aware, most of the butter sold 
about Epping now has been made either in Normandy or in 
Ireland, for the few dairy-farms in the neighbourhood are all 
taken up with the new milk trade. That does not alter the 
fact, however, that much of the land is exceedingly good 
butter-yielding soil, but it is not all of this kind, unfortunately, 
for I know of instances where the butter yielded from a 
given quantity of cream is at least 30 per cent, less than in 
some other cases. So far as I can make out, the " boulder 
clay and drift " soils of the district are better than the London 
clay in cream- and butter-yielding power — contrary to my 
expectation,- — and this irrespective of feeding or treatment 
of the animals. The proximity to London, however, and the 
superior handiness of the new milk trade, has made us all take 
to this style of working. Most of us have come here to escape 
the drudgery of cheese- or butter-dairies, such as are the rule 
in the South-west of Scotland, and many would prefer to have 
sheep and cattle, with no cows at all ; so that if we must have a 
dairy, it will be on the easiest system. It must be acknowledged 
that cows do very well in the district, and though new milk is 
not as profitable now as it was six or seven years ago, yet it has 
a great many things to recommend it. A verj' large quantity of 
the produce of the farm can be consumed at home, thus retaining 
a larger proportion of the fertility of the soil ; the money is re- 
ceived in monthly instalments as you need it, in place of only 
at one or two periods of the year ; and an immense quantitj' of 
valuable dung is manufactured at home. Of course I am refer- 
ring to dairying where large quantities of cake and meal are 
bought in, the residue of which goes to enrich the land. 
Unfortunately some of the proprietors of the district have 
formed the idea that cows impoverish land, and refuse to let 
their farms to dairymen, and this in spite of all the evidence 
that has been made public on the matter respecting the small 
amount of fertility removed in milk, and the large amount re- 
turned in the cake and meal. One large farm in this neigh- 
bourhood was refused to a Scotsman for this reason, and it is at 
present being farmed by a bailiff. 
Reference has beoii made to the application of dung to the 
amble laiul, and it is from the cows that most of it is pro- 
