THE BIG COW FAMILY

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 13 October 1921, Page 3

THE BIG COW FAMILY

SOME OFFSIDE COMMENT

(By J. H. Claridge.)

Several tens of years ago when working on a Taranaki paper I was promised a few shillings per week extra if I assisted the editor (who was as deaf as a beetle) by collecting and contributing a few items of news. My stuff went all right for a while, until one day the editor said : " Look here, you write too lightly; there are some sensible people as well as fools in this community." Then I went on the opposite tack, and lost no opportunity to put in dry and morbid items. This, neither, did not suit the boss thinker, so one day after looking over an obituary notice of a well-known horse he remarked : " I think you had better try the happy medium." Since that time I have learned that many people appreciate what to others seems dry reading, especially if the matter relates to New Zealand affairs. The ECHO manager having thrown out a hint that an article on the dairy industry would be acceptable, I herewith indite one from an ordinary observer's extended'observations.

Fifty years ago fresh butter was almost unknown in New Zealand ; there were very few cows in the country. Butter was obtainable, certainly, but it was highly salted' and stale. The grocers got it in round keg.s, and usually placed a keg on the counter, knocked off the staves, dug out junks as required, and weighed; the price was from 9d to Is per lb. To have to eat such stuff at the present time people would undoubtedly think a great hardship. Some housewives used to wash the "butter" in cold water (not hot, of course!), thus removing part of the salt. The reason fresh butter could not be procured was simply because none was made for sale. I have often wondered and enquired where the kegs of butter came from, but never succeeded in finding out. Many years after I asked a retired storekeeper of Wanganui, but he had no idea; all he could say was that his firm bought from the shipping merchants. Taylor and Watt.

About forty years back good fresh "dairy" butter became fairly plentiful, at Is per 3b. This was before the wonderful separator came into use, and the cream was saved by skimming, after the milk had "set" for several hours; the butter made in cool weather was consequently the more tasty.

I was in Taranaki when the dairy industry commenced to get established in what is now the largest butter and cheese producing district in the dominion, though incidentally I think that ere long the Waikato will eclipse it in the way of quantity. Early in the "eighties" a Chinaman named Chew Chong (who was blessed with a Euro Dean wife) established a small factory at Eltham. This wideawake Celestial created a "mild sensation" by winning a first prize for butter at an exhibition held in Dunedin. This drew attention to Taranaki as a likely field for dairying operations. The newspapers took the matter up, and the industry grew with the establishing of creameries in various parts and factories in certain centres, lam assured that at the present time Taranaki has the largest butter factory in the dominion —Kaupokonui—and the^Ngaruawahia faotory is perhaps the second largest. It was comparatively recently that home separation came into prominence, doing away with the creameries, mainly through the efforts of Mr Win. G-oodfellow, then managing director of the Wai^ato Co-op. Dairy Co. This hoirje separation method proved a great boon to the little farmer, who could convey to the factory small quantities of cream by light vehicle or even on horseback, over tracks and hills where no roads existed.

Much of the Taranaki flat land was covered with fern, and q'ther large areas were laden with heavy standing mixed hash, The bush land was sold at £2 to £5 p. acre (now worth and bringing ,£100). Hundreds of acres of hush were felled every year, and big burnings paused the country to be enveloped in. suffocating smoke for weeks during the early part of the year. When high winds prevailed very exciting times were experienced by the settlers, and the fires' clean sweep caused loss and many hardships for the time being. I remember being one of a party in a railway truck drawn by an engine, sent to rescue some persons in danger near Stratford. The engine could not return until new sleepers had been laid. The waste of valuable timber, in order to qlear the timber, for cow.-graz : jngi was very, gre.at. Thousands of magnificent matai, rimu, and kahil^a tea trees were felled and burned — trees many of which

would now each produce timber worth £100 —dressed rimu is now worth up to £2 per 100 feet. After the burnings — sometimes very clean —the land was rough sown in grass, and soon the area would become a cow worshipper's (or defamer's) paradise—the locality really a bushless waste dotted with tree skeletons and stumps where a couple of years before stood the majestic virgin forest.

The expansion shown in the North Auckland portion of the island seems very satisfactory. With perhaps the exception of river flats here and there, it has not the advantage of heavy soil which Taranaki and Waikato possess, but with science brought to bear in tilling and manuring a large additional portion of it should prove very satisfactory for dairying purposes. At the present time no better butter is manufactured in New Zealand than that produced in the North. Nuf sed. Let me finish with a few sentimental lines :

You manifest forth your glory, wondrous

cow, When you calmly show the whole world how

Patient work can help to enrich the poor As you quietly emerge from the cow-bail door !

Silent and sad, not a word but a blink ; No cost to keep, save some grass and a

drink ; Fortunes you've made with never a wage; You're the only free worker in a high paid age !

I'd ti.ke off my hat if you understood How appreciated you arc, how very good To provide us with butter and'milkand cheese — 'ghe very best human foods are these !