BUTTER AND CHEESE FACTORIES.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2231, 22 April 1881, Page 2

BUTTER AND CHEESE FACTORIES.

It is notified by telegram from Wellington that the “ Gazette ” contains an official intimation, inter alia, that a bonus of £SOO will be given for the first twenty-five tons of batter or first fifty tons of cheese (produced in a factory working on the American principle, and to which factory any farmer, subject to certain conditions, may send hiemilk), which shall be exported from New Zealand and sold at such prices in a foreign market as shall show that the articles are of fair quality. The wisdom of laying down the restriction contained in this last clause may be questioned, as a committee of honorableand experienced men could readily bo selected, from amongst New Zealanders, to decide upon the marketable merits of produce submitted for examination. Thus the delay involved in the condition that the articles arc to be sold at a satisfactory figure in an outside 1 market might have been obviated. This, however, is a matter of detail, and docs not militate against the excellence of the plan which has suggested itself to Government for encouraging the colonial manufacture of two important items of New Zealand industry. Or it may be that tho test of approval in a foreign market is conditioned with a view to inducing tho making of such a class of both butler and cheese as, by the aid of refrigerating machinery or other manipulation, will stand the ordeal of a voyage. It will be observed that the factory under notice must be in work upon the American principle, and a few explanatory words as to this may not bo out of place, especially for any farmers to whom it may seem advisable to become units in the list of competitors for the £SOO bonus. More than a century ago England incul- ' cated tho principles of Protection among her then fellow-subjects in America. A ban was placed upon the erection of manufactories ; and, as stalwart men and large communities equally with children set their heart upon what is forbidden, it became a prominent notion amongst Yankees that they would lick creation in the direction of manufactures, and become, par excellence, a manufacturing nation. As an eesential ingredient in their capacity for furthering this darling ambition, it must bo admitted by tho most sturdy of Britishers that Americans excel in organisation, and eke out by combined strength results which individual and disjunctive efforts would necessarily fail to achieve. This is exemplified in the cheese and butter factories, which flourish in the dairy districts of the United State* ; and, so far as the work on an American’s dairy-farm is concerned, reduces the most harassing part of it to a minimum. A wide field for these factories has presented itself, for instance, in Massachusetts, whence many farmers have migrated west in quest of more productive soil, the remainder, to tho chagrin of many English capitalists, making a specialty of manufactures. In this State are numbers of farms, each comprising, say, 150 acres, and 35 cows, these being the approximate numbers formulated by Mr Wm. Saunders in his instructive work upon tho American continent. During the year the farmer, his wife, and one man (who lives with the family, and as a member of it), get through all the work, except during tho haymaking season, when an additional hand is engaged. Corn, fruit and potatoes, in small quantities, are cultivated. The value of the land (dwelling-house and out-houses included) may be estimated at £2O an acre. Tho farmhand receives about £3 10s a month, together with board ; or £6 10s a month without board. When throe days old tho calves are generally killed, and the skin of one fetches 4s. Twice a day the milk is taken to the cheese-factory, where it is sold at a half-penny a pound, the farmer being at liberty to fill his cans with whey or butter milk, and thus secure for his pigs a feed which is not the less nourishing because he gels it for nothing. At tho cheese-factory facilities are provided for receiving and weighing milk, which is “ poured into tinned receptacles about 15ft long and sft. wide, surrounded with running cold water when it is desire 1 to cool the milk and with steam when it has to be heated." j f f om 800 cow » is made into cheese and butter by three men and one girl. Thus with American farmers, the bother incident to butter and cheese making is avoided. Furthermore, butter and cheese factories enable a merchant to guarantee tho supply 0 f an article of uniform excellence, and, therefore, easy to quit. On the other hand, where trivial quantities are mode at tho various larmoiI ar moii th f e r‘- y Varies in ( t 0 tbe merchant) a most tantalising manner, tho difficulty of " Z UCed a tho ““d-fold. and there £t -;n glbl ® that > « bought, a small lot will prove saleable. 8 * “