OUR DAIRIES.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue 582, 10 February 1882, Page 2

OUR DAIRIES.

No. G.—Mu John Glynan's,

Mr John Glynan's dairy farm is at Onuku, close to the Maori pali. It is most Mrl.nresqtit-'ly situated, and the peculiarity that strikes one on approaching the projiß:iyi-. that opposite every post in the I'.-si'.'es is a young blue gum tree. This strikes one as a capital idea, for, as Mr Glynan says, you will never want any other posts put in when they grow up, and the tops will furnish the rails arid give shelter and timber besides. The only improvement one could suggest would be that mulberries should be substituted for gums, so that the leaves might be used for sericioultiiral purposes. Mr Glj'nan was a soldier in the 58th Regiment, and did good service in the early New Zealand wars, as his medals testify. He came out in 1845, and left Wellington for Akaroa in 1856, residing here ever since. He took his present placs a year after he arrived here, and his labor has turned it from a wilderness into a capital farm. The homestead is reached by a good track leading from the road. The stockyard and bails are very substantial, and are on a slope, so that the drainage is very good. They are a good distance from the other buildings, so the milk has to be carried a long way, but Mr Glynan thinks this i 8 more than compensated for, by the cattle not being brought too near the house. The cheese-room, well filled with good Dunlop cheese, is nice and cool, being shaded by a great gum tree, and the dairy itsolf, where the cheeesis made, is in the house formerly lived in by Mr Glynan, who has now moved to a very substantial looking new house. This is the first dairy visited where the Dunlop system of making cheese is carried on, and certainly it is a very good sample. Mr Glynan thoroughly believes in it, having a deep-rooted objection to sour whey and the Cheddar system. There are 30 cows in milk this season on the farm, and iil>out 50Ibs of cheese are made daily. All the calves were kept and are looking well. They get a gallon of milk a meal for the first six weeks, and after that have a mixed diet of milk and whey. Miss Glynan makes the cheese, and every operation seems to bo performed with great c ire. The milk is set in the evening in pans. In the morning the cream is skimmed and the milk heated to from 80dg. in hot to 90dg. in cold weather, and poured over the cream in the strainer, running it easily into ilie new milk. The milk is set at about 80dg., Hansen's extract being used. In about half an hour it is broken up, and if too cold some of the whey is taken from it and heated till it rises to a temperature of 90dg. It is then kept stirred up for an hour, allowed to settle for ten minutes, and the whey is then drawn off. and the curd put in the dipper. A. small weight is applied and the curd is minced up with a knife every quarter of an hour for three hours, to get as much whey out as possible. No further heat is applied. The curd is then put through the curd-cutter, salted and pressed. It is in the press three days before being finally removed to the cheese room, a lighter weight being applied the third day.

Mr Glynan is not at all pleased with the present custom of giving a uniform rate for cheese. Ho thinks it should be classified, and a higher price given for tin; bvttiM - quiUi'i-s, as in his opinion it m !u;» many peoiiUi careless when they knowii rli.it th>'} can get as good prices .'Hi , i.he clieuhe iii-ide indiJi'erentiy as for that with which peculiar pains have been taken.