DAIRYING IN DENMARK.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIII, Issue 10599, 7 March 1895, Page 2

DAIRYING IN DENMARK.

Tho following extract from Mrs Alec Tweedie’a work, “ A Winter Jaunt in Norway,” shows how thoroughly the dairy industry has been developed in Denmark: — We were anxious to have a psop at a butter factory after hearing that England imported £11.965.234 worth oi that commodity in )892,cne-third of which had come from Denmark. Such figures ava enough to excite any English parson’s interest at a time when landlords, farmers, and Labourers are all crying out that ruin is staring them in the face, snd that nothing agricultural can be worked at a profit. So thought Denmark twenty years ago, and poverty had settled on the land; hut one day she awoke from hov lethargy, and started nroduoiug butter, bacon, and eggs with such marvellous results that Denmark is r, flourishing country to-day, giving employment to her people, and filling her coffers with EcgTish gold. How has this come about ? The Danish farmers have seen tho advisability of co-operation, and have realised that it is impossible to keep cue standard of butter when everyone makes the article according to hia own particular fancy. They started email butter factories hsre and there, to which e. few farmers seat their cream, and tho butter was mads on tho most approved scientific principles. Little by little tho work has -spread, until factories are to ba mat with all over the land, and the big farmer and fcha little crofter alike send their cream to ba made into butter for the English market. Thin nyatsm has been, so wonderfully perfected that veterinary surgeons visit the farms ouoo a fortnight, when every case of disease among the cattle is isolated. The animals are fad on rigorous diet, the milkers are properly trained, tho milk is strained and cooled by ice immeoiately. The cream is separated by centrifugal machine?. Means of transport are rapid and excellent, and once the cream reaches the factory tho butter is made so methodically that one girl can do an amount of work which it would require six to Accomplish under other conditions. It is this combined labour, this wonderful system, built upon year by year, that has made butter-making in Denmark tho success it is, end not “ State aid, cs many erroneously suppose. Tho Stats holds shows and awards prizes, snd does so on. such an excellent system that it raises the standard of butter every year, but beyond that the State has nothing to do with the trade. , „ ~ Nothing is wasted in Denmark; all the butter-milk is used in feeding tho pigs, and the bacon that ia sent yearly to England amounts in value to considerably over £IOOO 000 sterling. But little Denmark does not aton even hero. The egg trade is worth over *£400,000 per annum. And it may astonish soma people to learn_ ua&t over a million eggs are sent every asy to the English market from foreign sources. The Danish egg trade is again tim result of co-operation. The rich farmer with ais hundreds of eggs ncr diem, and Sue little crofter with hie half-dczsn, merely keep them until the arrival of the district eggcollector. This person calls every week, and has them properly packed, and sends them oil to England in thousands.