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Co-operative Dairies in Denmark. 
deals as much with the details of organisation, and with the economics 
of the Danish co-operative dairies, as with the purely scientific side of 
the processes employed, and hence will be found at least as interest- 
ing to practical dairymen as to the scientific reader. 
History of Butter-making in Denmark. 
The co-operative dairies of the present day are factories intended 
for the exclusive manufacture of butter, organised and administered 
by combinations of the dairy farmers of each district. These build 
and equip the factory by means of a loan redeemable in a certain 
number of years. At the same time they engage to furnish the 
milk necessary to the working of the factory. Each farmer receives 
every month a sum proportional to the quantity and quality of the 
milk which he brings, but less than the whole value of this milk. 
He engages, moreover, to take back the separated milk and the 
buttermilk from his own contribution of milk. The money received 
for this, added to the profit obtained from the milk, suffices to meet 
the general expenses, to contribute towards extinguishing the debt, 
and often to permit of a dividend amongst the members. After 
some years, the debt being extinguished, the factory belongs to the 
members of the company, and the dividends are naturally much 
augmented. These co-operative concerns seem particularly adapted 
to Denmark, where holdings are much divided and stock is conse- 
quently distributed amongst a great number of owners. 
It is, however, only after a series of successive trials that 
tliis mode of dealing with milk, which seems the most perfect and 
successful of all, has been arrived at. Before the advent of co- 
operative dairies, as above constituted, three principal systems were 
in use having for their object the collection of Danish butter for 
the export trade. These were known as Smorpakkerier (butter 
factories), Mcelkerier (creameries), and Fcellesmcelkerier (whole-milk 
or dairy factories). 
The Smorpakkerier, or butter factories, were the first which 
attempted to do a wholesale butter trade. Travellers attended the 
fairs and markets, buying on account of the factory the butter 
brought by a multitude of small farmers. These parcels, of very 
different origin and quality, were more or less assorted, then mixed 
and freshened by washing with water and fresh buttermilk. Large 
lots of butter of homogeneous composition were thus obtained, 
which after being salted were dispatched to the English market. 
This mode of working was full of defects, which those interested 
were not slow to perceive. In the first place it was not economical. 
The farmers lost time and money in bringing their butter to the 
market. There were numerous intermediate profits between them 
and the consumer. The factory proprietor had to allow for money 
sunk in plant, wear and tear, inevitable loss of material, &c. The 
sum received by the producer was in consequence small, inferior to 
the value of his merchandise, and always out of proportion to that 
paid by the consumer. 
