OUR DAIRIES.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue 596, 31 March 1882, Page 2

OUR DAIRIES.

No. 11. Mr Budua's at Pigeon Bay,

There are few better grassed farms on the Peninsula than Mr Budua'e at Pigeon Bay. It is splendid fattening land, and thanke to Mr Budua's care not to overstock, the cattle are in magnificent order. The situation of the homestead is not very picturesque. It is on a steep hill side, bat all the native bash is gone. There are some gums, however, and a fair orchard, and there ia a nice vegetable garden in front of tho dwelling house, the part nearest the verandah being well filled with flowers. Down in the valley, however, adjoining tho main road, ia a piece of pine bush, and here at no distant date Mr Budua intends building a new residence. The buildings at the present homestead are good. The houae (to which the dairy is attached) is very comfortable and marvellously kept. It is covered with vines and honey suckles, and has a nice aspect. In the sitting room our reporter specially noticed the mantelpiece which is ornamented with medallions, representing a pheasant. On enquiry he foand that when the bricks were being laid, Mrs Budua had stamped some of them with a batter pat, and so produced an excellent effect. The etoekyard is very commodious and well drained, and the bails are well paved witb stone, a channel being made for the reception of the liquid, manure, which ia run into a vessel and used for garden purposes. Mr Badna, too, in rainy weather, leads the water through the yard for the purpose of irrigating a lower paddock with the manure-impreg-nated water. The loft above the bails is well filled with hay, and so Jβ another building used as a calves-house. The cheeue-roeu),. which ia well ventilated, stande by itself, and keeps the cheese beautifully. It has a double floor and ceiling, and io lined with kauri. The house and dairy art) supplied with water from a Huk'iwli'.J Kpring which riaea above the houHe, and is brought flown by pipes.

Mr and Mrs BiicJua have been living , in j'igooii Bay for 18 years. Tl.e farm is a largo one of 500 acres, but a part is let to other people. It was all originally bush

land, but ie now cleared, with the exception of a few patches and a fine piece of heavy timber, some 20 acres in extent. The lanii ia divided into convenient pad- J docks for working, and is etocked with about 200 head of cattle. Of these 32 are being milked this season, the rest being young and fat cattle, and of these latter Home 40 or 50 head are rolling fat, and will be sent to the market shortly. No less than 41 calves have been reared this season. They are fed on milk, and the system pursued is to make one cow rear as many calves as possible. Mr Budua has had cows that have reared seven calves each in a season, one rearing 14 in two years, and our reporter was shown two that had each reared five calves this year. The pigs are fed on the whey. Only about a dozen are kept, and these are properly fastened off and sold to the same private individuals year after year. Mr Budua thinks the half-bred shorthorn cattle the best. His cows are a very good lot; they averaged 3|lb of cheese daily in the beginning of the season, and now give about 21b. Last year, when the feed was better, they averaged over 41b of cheese each, daily, for some time—a very high yield indeed. Mr Budua takes great pains to rear the right sort of stock. He has a very handemne yearling bull, which he bought from the Messrs Hay, being a son of their imported animals. Mr Budua has acquired his splendid estate gradually. Hie fences are excellent, being 10 wires and good substantial posts, ond he calculates will last 50 years. They are both cattlo and uheep proof. Fifty acres of ground were saved for cocksfoot this year, and 150 bags sent away ; but in previous years a great deal more has been harvested, no less than 25 tons being sent away in 1879 ; but the low prices lately obtained made Mr Budua fatten cattle instead.

The dairy is well fitted and convenient and here Mrs Buduti reigns supreme. Like Mrs Reid Mrs Budua comes from the cheese County of Ayrshire, her birth place being Kilmarnock—the very centre of the Northern cheese trade. She wae taught the Cheddar system by a Mr and Mrs Harding who came to Scotland under the auspices of the Highland Agricultural and Pastoral Association to instruct the farmers in this famous system. They remained so many days in each place and Mrs Budua was one or" those who attended at Kilmarnock. The apparatus used was all ordered from home, from Messrs Bickett and Co. of Kilmarnock, and thoush they have been 12 years in use are nearly aa good as new. The vat in which the milk is set ia tin, slightly raised in the centre for draining the curd, with a brass whey tap at the bottom. Mrs Budua says these tubs were used universally in Scotland when ehe left, as they keep the milk much cooler than wood and are easier cleaned. Mrs Btidua puts most of the milk in the vat at night but always seta a few pans. If in the morning the milk is 70 degor tinder in the pans, it is skimmed and some of the milk wanned before it is added to the rest, to melt the cream, but if over 70 deg it is passed through the strainer into the other milk at once. It is set at 82 deg in warm to 84 in cold weather, no sour whey being used when it is hot. Their own rennet is used, it being kept in jara with lemon sliced in, it. After being set the milk is J allowed about an hour's rest, (t is then stamped for.r times with a machine like a large iron wire sieve, which cuts it into pieces that are in inch by an inch and a half. It is afterwnrds etined gently with a curd shovel, and allowed to eettle a few minutes to get some whey, which is heated to bring the curd to the temperature at which it was set After standing another half-hour, whey is taken off with a syphon, an<i the whole mass raised to lOOdg. Enough whey is left to work nicely, and after standing 20 minutes it is broken up with a revolving breaker, worked with wheels. It is a machine made of iron bara to fit the vat; one half has vertical bare and the other horizontal, so the curd is cut both ways as fine ,ih pearl barley. Great caro has to be taken not to turn too fast. After half an hour's rest the remainder of the whey in drained off from the bottom tup, passing through a strainer, so that no curd should be lost. The curd is then heaped into the middle of the tub on the convex bottom, to drain. No weight is applied, but it is left half an hour and then broken up small arid spread round the tub to cool. No other cooler is used. When the temperature is low enough, it is put in the dripper half an hour, with weight on it, and ground and salted, and put in chesscts. The chefisets are 56, 45, and 371bs respectively, and buyers, Mr Budua says, prefer the larger. The grinding mill is a very good one bruising, but not cutting the curd. There are two rollers, and under them is a piece of wood that fits in between, studded with double pins. Mrs Budtia puts loz salt to every 3£lbs cheoee. The cheese is pressed lightly at first, and next morning has a dry cloth, a finer one to give a nice skin to the cheese in put on in the afternoon, and the next morning it is jacketted and stored. The cheese are certainly very good, and have always realised excellent prices in tho market—the real test of merit.

We cannot conclude without thanking Mr and Mrs Budua for the great courtesy shown to our reporter.