Butter Boxes made of Straw.

King Country Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 101, 9 October 1908, Page 3

Butter Boxes made of Straw.

In future liic boxes containing butter shipped from Queensland to Great Britain are to be made of straw, ant! a company with a capital of £50,000 has been formed to work the busmen- - . Butter boxes hitherto have been nni!c of pine, but the drain upon this timber owing - to the heavy exports, has been so severe that the wood is rapidly going - up in price. In March last, over 50,000 boxes of butter arrived from Queensland in this country. 12"i0 tons worth £140,000. In its manufacture a mixture of kaolin and straw are used. It can be produced and sold for Is. At present 3,000,000 boxes are used in Australia annually, costing £200,000. It is stated the new box will save the dairy industry about -30,000 a year. The material for manufacturing the box can be grown in the same paddock that supports the cow. The new box weighs about lOAlbs., is damp proof, and odourless.

A prominent Taranaki man intimately connected with the dairying industry in referring to the new boxes said he did not think the innovation would find favour in New Zealand. In appearance they were not to be compared with the pine boxes, and from a utility point of view were not so easily handled.

A writer in the Farm Journal,U.S. A., says: "When a calf is taken away to be butchered, if a piece of string, twine of any kind, is put into its blood and then tied round the cow's neck, she never frets nor bawls for the calf. I have done this for years, and thus stopped the cow's piteous bawling."