MR BOWRON AT TARADALE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4114, 27 September 1884, Page 3

MR BOWRON AT TARADALE.

Upwards of sixty settlers and others interested in dairy produce met at the Oddfellows' Hall, Taradalo, on Thursday evening last, to hear Mr Bowron, Government Lecturer and Inspector of Dairies, who had announced his intention to give full information regarding the establishment and management of cheese and butter factories. Mr G-. Rymer was appointed chairman, and introduced the lecturer, a genial elderly gentleman, stout and well preserved, pleasant spoken and cheery in manner, the very beau ideal of the English farmer. TVIV JBowron expressed liis pleasure in meeting so many evidently well-to-do settlers interested in dairy work. Ho was himself an old farmer of vast experience, first in Yorkshire, then in Wilts, afterwards in Middlesex, then Herts, and finally in Somerset. He had been a. great traveller, and had practical acquaintance with the British, Continental and colonial trade in all kinds of dairy produce. At the invitation of Mr Whitaker he was now making a tour of New Zealand for the purpose of lecturing on and promoting the establihmont of cheeSe and butter factories. Farmers in England had a saying that sheep walk in golden slippers, and probably New Zealand runholdors considered that their sheep walked in silver ones. But he believed that dairy farming could be shown to pay better than sheep. His own cows in England had each made him £22 a year, only they wanted £7 a head back again to keep them during winter. This need not be the case in this country; the climate here was eminently favorable to dairy work the wholo year round, and he believed the industry had a great future before it if only the settlers of this country would take the work in hand in the proper manner. He would like to sec a factory established in every district managed by the best cheese and butter makers that England could pror duce. Thero was no difficulty in obtaining a market for both butter nnil cheese in any quantity. Every milch now in New Zealand ought to Wing a clear profit of £10 a year to her owner. The weight of cheese made from a given quantity of milk was variable. In England the average was 15 ounces from every lOlbs (one gallon) of milk. At Ashburton (Canterbury, N.Z.) .] Olbs Boz of milk produced ono pound of cheese, at Temuka the average was 17£oz of ■cftccso to every 11 lbs of milk, and at Edeiidulo (Otago) it was shown by the books that since the time the factory there had bco.u in. operation -lOOOlbs of cheese had been made more than had been received

gallons of milk. The quality of the milk had of course much to do with the quantity of cheese produced, but on the mode_ of manufacture, tho manipulation of the milk, and the breaking down of the curd, the result mainly depended. He had often seen the best part of the milk in the process of cheese making going to waste to fatten hogs, so that with him it was a maxim :—

" If pigs be rolling fat, be sure You'll find the cheese is very poor." If tho Taradale people determined to have a factory, as he hoped they would, the question would be whether it should be a butter factory only, or a cheese and butter factory combined: The latter would cost about £1500, the former half that amount. He thought from the appearance of those present that money was no object with them, but perhaps the butter factory would bo the best to stnrt first. He had been in the butter trade for 45 years, and could tell them Home strange things about it. He saw quite recently in New Zealand an immense quantity of butter that had gone bad on the owner's hands It had turned a dirty white, like tallow, it was worse than rank, but the owner, on his (Mr Bowron's) advice, shipped it all off to London, where it bought 7d per lb. Thousands of firkins of bad butter are annuaily sent to London, where it is put through a chemical process and mixed with tallow, in fact tons of the tallow sent from this country are converted into butter for the London market. He was not romancing ; he knew that to get really good butter in London was the exception, not the rule. The consumption of butter, good, bad, and indifferent in England, was enormous. France, Denmark, and Sweden drew £4,000,000 a year out of England from their butter trade alone. The French have only been in the trade about 12 years. Their butter is sold at 2s per lb, and tleir annual trade with England in the article is worth 2£ millions. American butter is only a compound of beef fat, pork fat, and tallow ; yet they draw 6 millions of English money out of the trade every year, while the trade of Scotland and Ireland is 40 millions. He would like to sec New Zealand standing in for a share of this plunder. It was worth a grab. Here was the grandest country for dairy produce the sun shines upon. (The lecturer grew quite poetic in his laudation of tho New Zealand climate, its clear skies, bright days and cool evenings. He extolled " tho cattle on a thousand hills," and the hills themselves that tap the clouds and bring refreshing waters to the lowlands.) In conclusion Mr Bowron stated that he had only touched lightly upon the subject, as there would be shortly published in ' the Napier papers his full lecture, which could be read by the people at their leisure. Replying to questions, the lecturer supplied information on the following points : — The most suitable land for dairy farming, the particular temperature for cheese curing, for curding the milk, the best breed of dairy cows, the bent time for milking, tliu management of factories, the cost of tho centrifugal machine (cream sepcrator), and particulars as to freight, markets, etc for dairy produce. Mr E. Gilbertson proposed a vote of thanks to tho lecturer, which was carried by acclamation. Mr Bowron—who is earnest and enthusiastic in the cause of his mission, acknowledged tho compliment, and again referred to his published lecture, and trusted that if the settlers of Taradale thought fit to start a factory amongst thorn they would go about it in a deliberate and business-like manner, avoiding rash proceedings that ended only in disappointment.