438 The Manufacture of Artificial Butter in the Netherlands. 
farmers round about the town. Each farmer delivers at the 
factory twice a day as much milk as he likes to bring, and is 
paid at the rate of 7 cents per litre, or 6^fZ. per gallon ; the 
average quantity delivered by each farmer is 30 litres, or 6J 
gallons, and the greatest quantity is 45 litres, or 10 gallons. 
The butter of North Brabant, as already stated, is of inferior 
quality, and fetches only one guilder per kilo (about 9^/. per lb.), 
therefore the farmers find it much more profitable to sell their 
milk at Q^d. per gallon. Usually about 10 per cent, of milk is 
used in the manufacture of artificial butter, and about one-half 
of its bulk remains incorporated with the oleomargarine and 
butter, so that the finished material contains about 16 per cent, 
of water. Some manufacturers use olive oil in place of a 
portion of oleomargarine, and others are trying to economise 
the milk by using a proportion of water with it ; but the 
adoption of these expedients results in the production of an 
inferior article. 
Effect on Wages. — This business enables the manufacturers to 
retain their best workmen by paying them about 2s. per day, 
the second-rate men earning about Is. 9rf. to Is. 10c/. They 
have the privilege of using as much buttermilk as they like, but 
it is generally too salt to be largely consumed. The low rate of 
wages may be to some extent explained by the fact that the 
people of North Brabant are Roman Catholics, and will not 
emigrate to the Protestant provinces of Holland where labour is 
dearer. To some extent, also, this accounts for the concentra- 
tion of these factories in this province, instead of their being 
placed nearer the great ports and the great milk and butter- 
producing districts. In those districts, not only would wages 
be dearer, but milk could not be obtained at a price which 
would leave a sufficient margin of profit to the makers of 
artificial butter. 
Milk Suppli/. — The smallest farmers supply still smaller 
makers of artificial butter, and as the quantity of milk sent by 
each is too minute to make its separate carriage to the factory 
profitable, a co-operative system of transport is resorted to. 
The cows are milked three times a day, and the produce of each 
milking is sent at once to the factory in a small cart just large 
enough to hold the cans and a boy, and drawn by a dog. A 
certain number of farmers join together either to pay for the 
carriage, or to take the milk of all for a week in rotation. 
These small people manage to get a somewhat higher price for 
their milk than the larger farmers, viz., 8 cents, per litre, or Id. 
per gallon, but then they deliver three times per diem, and 
doubtless the cost of carriage of minute quantities is an item 
not to be overlooked. 
