The record-union., 1896-01-01
WHAT THEY WANT.
An Example for American Farmers
and Daiymen.
How the People of Denmark Have
Studied the English Markets,
and the Result.

form by the United States Department
of Agriculture. 1t is worthy of careful
perusal:
The sale of 3OS beeves in England at
little more than Z cents pound, live
weight, or very close to $1O0 a head,
quite justifies Secretary Morton for say
ing that 1t would pay Americans to pro-
duce for export the things that people
abroad wished to buy. The Polled An
gus cattle in this particular shipment
were in the greatest request and easily
sold for SlOO, the HerefordS came next,
and the Durhams ranked last; but there
could have been no great difference be-
tween them, for the average price per
head was $97 So. The fact that this lot
OF cattle weighed an average of 1,360
pounds, and not one was lost on the
voyage, and the lot arrived in better
condition than they left this country,
shows that the animals were carefully
selected and were well cared for on the
voyage, and this intelligence and pain
stalking evidently paid. If American
horses suitable for omnibus work will
readily command $3.50 in Liverpool and
London, it is quite premature to say
that the trolley car and the bicycle have
driven the horse out of business and
breeding him no longer pays. OF course
all horses will not bring $3.50 in English
cities, but at that price it will pay on
American farms to raise the kind of
horses that is desired
The Secretary of Agriculture refers
again to the competition of American
and Danish bacon in England. The
bacon sent to England from this coun-
try brought in 1894 over $4,000, 900; at
the price of Danish bacon it would have
brought over $2S,00000 Bacon as
well adapted to the British taste as the
Danish can be cured here if the farmers
and the packers will take the pains to
do it. The difference between SO II per
hundred weight, the price Of American
bacon, and S14 Is, the price of Danish
bacon, is nearly all a net profit, for it
would cost little more, possibly not any
more to make bacon as popular in Eng
land as the Danish.
1t is absurd that American butter
should go to England in very small
quantities and at very moderate prices,
while Denmark is sending England
enormous quantities. that bring high
prices, and it's only serious competitor is
Australia, whose butter has to traverse
the tropics and make the passage of the
Red Sea- But the people of Denmark
have taken pains to find out what can
be sold in England and other foreign
markets, and they have applied them
selves with great energy and high in
telligence to the task of producing those
things. This has not been the work of
the Government or of the commercial
classes more than it has been the work
of the peasantry themselves, who have
shown an enterprise and a business
capacity that put the American farmer
to shame
part of the country are complaining of
a fall in price of wheat which became
marked and permanent some fifteen
years ago, but they go on raising wheat
just the same, and a good many of them
think that if they cut the dollar in two
they would get twice as much per BUSH
ell for their wheat. 1t is claimed in be-
half of the Danish peasantry, and the
claim seems pretty well made out, that
they were the only agriculturfsts who,
about 1880, revolutioniZed their bust
ness to meet the altered conditions of
the world. Wheat has fallen perman
emily on account of the extension of its
culture into new countries with plenty
of cheap soil, and because the difference
between the cost of carrying wheat to
market from near and from remote
countries had been in great part OBJ
liberated. These facts were recognized
by the farmers of Denmark, who
abandoned wheat raising and went in
for dairy farming.
They went into it, too, on scientific
principles. In the past five or six years
325 cattle-breeding societies have
sprung up in Jutland alone, and they
control now more than two-thirdS of
the stock of the kingdom. The number
of cattle has been enormously increased
and the milk capacity of the cows has
been increased by careful breeding,
and the farmers cooperate in measures
to suppress cattle diseases, while Amer
lean farmers generally rebel at efforts
to suppress cattle diseases, and some of
them will sell the milk and flesh of dis
eased animals without compunction.
The water system iii dairies gave way
to the ice system, and rnat to the CEN
trifugal system, but the butter of the
small farmers remained much inferior
to that of the great farmers, because
they could not afford good facilities for
making and handling butter. Ten years
ago the peasants began the organiza-
tion of cooperative steam dairy farm
ing. The peasants who deliver the milk
are joint owners of the dairy, and they
are bound to feed their cattle on a pre-
scribed system. This little kingdom,
speck on the map of Europe, now con-
tains about 900 steam dairies owned
comparatively by the peasants, 200
owned by individuals other than farm
ers, and 2S0 of these dairies are on the
great estates. The smallest farmer now
makes as good butter and gets as good
a price for it as the greatest one, for
every achievement of science and of
industry is at the service of the owner
10 lgql lB se IG9M Sc 'sMoo u7zop 10
the owner of several hundreds. Twenty
five years ago the total export Of butter
from Denmark was 10000 hundred
weight; last year England alone took
from Denmark 1,102, ,493 hundred
weight. Danish butter has been driv-
ing other butter out of the English mar
ket, where it brings about the same
ha hos 10 or&io oIe
About 150 of the cooperative dairies
have formed q butter export company
Tor the purpose Of shipping direct to
England, with the purpose of opening
places for the sale Of butter, and saving
for the Danish peasantry the profit of
one middieman-
Five years ago Denmark was export
ing live hogs to Germany. This busi-
ness was broken up by the trichina
scare, and at once the Danes set to
producing bacon for the English mar
ket. Already they send more bacon to
England than any other people do ex-
cept Americans, and their bacon has
the proportions of fat and lean, and the
qualities of curing which make it espe-
cially liked in England, and it brings
about 90 per cent. higher price than
ours. Denmark also exports horses and
cattle, and even the United States buys
VI AANA- AAt <aA11N4 AOci1l
might as well understand that wheat is
going to remain cheap. An occasional
scarcity will run up prices, but there
is too much good wheat land in Russia
Argentine and Australasia for
the price to remain high long. But we
have still great advantages over many
other parts of the world in the raising
of horses, cattle, swine, sheep and the
of butter, of cheese and pre-
served meats. It is our business to