( XXIV ) 
From then till now there has been but little fluctnation, except 
in the prices of thirds, fourths, and fifths, which, during the 
months of Xovember and December, have steadily declined until 
they reached quotations for thirds, about 208. under the price asked 
for best butterine, and for fourths something about the ordinary 
value of cellar-grease, notwithstanding that the butters now being 
sold under those brands are the genuine produce of Irish dairies ! 
So far as it can be ascertained, there is a smaller quantity of butter 
in the hands of the Cork merchants this January than has been 
the case for very many years, and in a few weeks hence it will not 
be easy to obtain any supplies of grass-made butter from the 
usual sources in Cork. There was a considerable falling-off in 
the supplies to Cork Market last year — something over 40,000 
casks. 
The commencement of the year 1883 found the Cork Butter 
Market an object of very great solicitude to a large committee of 
the landed proprietors in Ireland (including a great many members 
of the Houses of Lords and Commons), dairy fanners, country 
butter merchants, and others, whose objects, according to the reso- 
lutions in their circular, were to secure — 
1. The opening of the Cork Butter Market, so that all persons 
who chose might be at liberty to make purchases on a market 
through which passes two-fifths of the entire butter produce of 
Munster, unhampered by unreasonable restrictions. 
2. The abolition of the compulsory use of market brands, so as 
to allow each exporter of butter to use the brand that he thinks 
most likely to advance the butter trade of the country, and for the 
value of which he would be directly responsible to bis customers. 
This committee was formed on the publication of the report of 
the Duke of Richmond's Commission in reference to the Cork 
Market, which, if not a very long, was a very pregnant one. 
The report was : — 
" 1. The Cork Market has ceased to be an institution that can 
be favourably spoken of, 
" 2. The present arrangements evidently tend to reduce the 
value of the highest classes of butter, and to unduly raise that of a 
lower class. 
" 3. The Cork Butter Market is in no real sense an open market. 
. . . The management is in the hands of a close corporation, who 
discourage individual enterprise." 
The Butter Trade in Leith. — The trade during the whole of 
the i)ast year cannot be said to have been altogether satisfactory. 
Importers rarely made a remunerative margin on their shipments ; 
