LARD ASIAN EXPORT.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume I, Issue 23, 15 March 1845, Page 4

LARD ASIAN EXPORT.

{From a correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald.] I am happy to see you advert to lard as an export, and put your readers in mind of the process newly discovered in America of converting it into oil and stearine, and by a further process the stearine into spermaceti. May we presume that the American spermaceti candles are made from the stearine of lard, and that this circumstance accounts for their being sold so much cheaper than English sperm candles ? Your correspondent of 12 months back, I did not read. lam glad you bring forward his suggestion, and hope you will advert to it again and again. By similar means you caused sheep boilers* to be manufactured in Sydney, and sent to all parts of the colony, and caused a new export to come into existence. I hope, also, your old corrospondent will aid you by fresh contributions on the same subject ever and anon." The following is an extract from The London Journal of Commerce, of date the 28th September, 1844: —

From the above prices current, it appears that New South Wales tallow rates the lowest in the market, on the average, except Cape. Lard from New South Wales appears to have been unknown ; but in another year we shall have accounts of the lard sent home lately, and no doubt see it in the list of London imports. Oar maize, given to pigs in a ground state, (thoroughly ground mind, merely crushed is wasteful, and given dry, with only pure water to drink in a separate trough, will produce a hard, white, and, fine smelling lard, equal to London at 575. I speak from experience on this subject. To secure its being landed in an equally good state, it must be put into bladders, and salted in the melting with the clearest and finest salt. The settlers can buy bladders, both of sheep and bullocks, for a mere trifle, on applying for them at the boiling establishments. And bladders, especially smajl ones, would pack in a cask with a gentle squeezing, so as not to burst the bladder, with almost as much economy as regards tpace as if the lard were poured into casks in a melted state. I would advise no lard to be put into caste. The leakage across the line will be great, and the lard will unavoidably acquire a bad smell from being more exposed to the bad air of the ship. This colony being arid, the cultivation of ♦•culents of all kinds is mubh more uncertain than in England. Turnips, for instance, are a most uncertain crop in the field. But maize in New South Wales, and barley to the south, may be grown ad infinitum ; and the crops being converted into lard, here is a living for our little farmer, for the London market will afford an inexhaustible consumption for larJ. It is known that bladders are a hermetical seal, equal to the tins in which meats are preserved, hixi' tying of the bladder, must beidone with care. •Nothing shews ' the soitt of farming andfarmers who dwell in New Strath Wales, Port Phillip, and Van Diemeri's -Land, more than their sending their, maize to Sydney to be sold at a shilling a busbelrand their potatoes at I*. 6d. and 2s. & hundred weight. I know a merchant who lately offered A potatoe dealer a small cargo of VanJDiemjsn's^Land potatoes' for nothing, provided Jbe vsrouJ4- cart them off his premises. Is is not strange, to see men calling themselves farmers, and at the same time not keeping pigs enough to feed their own families and servants, much less to consume their maize and barley ? A gentleman who has travelled in Spain, informs me, that the peasants there, in sending their cured pork to market, cut off from the loin a portion of the fat, and render it into lard with the kindey and other offal fat of the pig. Such pork or bacon, so shaven of its fat, sells, better than if all the fat were allowed to remain ; while the extra lard thus produced is of greater value than the meat, pound for pound. P.S. — The farmer in England who breeds pigs on a large scale never fattens them, and he. mho fattens them does not breed them, jmt in thi* colony the farmer must do both ;

therefore, as a dairy is not an essential accompaniment, our cplonial farmer, besides using the skim milkiof his odd cow or two, must grow either potatoes or Swedish turnips. They ought to be steamed, to convert the raw juice of the potatoes into starch, and that of the turnips into saccharine matter — a kind of sweet-wort. Dry grain is not suitoble for breeding sows, except in a moderate quantity to keep them in heart. I see in your journal of this morning a proposal of converting sheep skins into packing cases for tallow. In the Sruth of Europe they use dried skins for wine, and in South America bullock and horse hides as packing cases for everything. Now if skins will hold wine, surely they will hold tallow. Your correspondent very pertinently suggests that the skins of sheep, when the latter are boiled down, might be got off the carcass by the same means as the natives skin kangaroos, namely, by drawing them iuside out from the neck to the tail, making incisions at the proper places, so as to allow the legs to pass through. The butchers could tell whether this can be done readily with sheep, and whether the ordinary process of skinning practised by them is to save time or to render' the appearance of the carcass after skinning more saleable. If the latter, be. the motive, the appearance of the carcass, after skinning a la native, will, in boiling down, be of no consequence. Ths locality of the proposed NewPenal Settlement. — From Breaker Spit or Sandy Cape, to the not th ward of Moreton Bay, in latitude 25°, a barrier of coral reefs extend nearly parallel with the coast, having a wide passage between for a thousand miles, which is called the Inner Passage of Torres Straits — this barrier is unbroken throughout this long distance, except on or near the latitude of 12°, where Steads, Pandora, and Raine's Inlet, afford passages from the sea, which are called the Outer or Middle Passages. The first, or inner passage, is performed in smooth water, but from the numerous islands and reefs with, which it is interspersed, the vessel must anchor every night, owiug to the labour and tediousness of which, the bolder class of mariners prefer tne outer course, in which all the dangers are concentrated in a few hours of dashing, vigorous enterprise. In the latitude of 18° 48', and in longitude 148° east, Captain Flinders, R.N., duriDg his arduous survey, in 1797, discovered a passage to sea, through this barrier, of about 20 miles in length, and from three to six and ten miles in width, through which he took his ship. This passage has been wholly neglected ever since, because it offers no indueemsnt for its use, and I think few persons are aware of its existence. Opposite this passage are Cape Upstart, Cape Cleveland, and Cape Gloucester, forming numerous bays indenting the shores of alow grassy country, and affording the most secure anchorages, with every indication of rivers and plenty of water, fuel, &c. At a distance of about twenty miles, a high rocky ridge of mountain rises, which probably form the verge of a table land, as in New England from the Clarence River, whose altitude will mitigate the climate, and adapt it to the purposes of colonization, if this probability should prove correct. South of Cape Upstart there is indicated on the charts of Captain P. P. King, R.N., an opening in the mountains, as also at Cleveland Bay, which may probably afford access to this table land, or to the interior. Now it would appear -almost evident oa an inspection of the chart, that this great opening in the barrier, in lat. 18°, peculiarly adapts that locality for colonization, from the facility* it affords for navigation to or from the sea, without the tedium of passing along this barrier through its extremities, which would otherwise be an insurmountable obstacle to the occupation of that vast range of country. It is with these views that we feel certain no better locality could be chosen than opposite this key to the> Straitg ; and when it Is remembered how various are the products of a country, the coast line of which runs north and south, we -may contemplate the rapid rise of thts new colony as beyond all precedent, and as adding to the other exports of Australia, cotton sufficient \o preserve the manufactures of great Britain from the caprice or hostility of other nations from whence the supply is now obtained. — Sydney Morning Heruld.

AVERAGE PRICES. For Petersburg!! Tallow Siberia ditto Ditto ditto seconds Odessa London, Town melted ...... New South, Wales Cape -. South American North American 41s. Bd. 43 0 45 0 29 0 41 0 39 6 37 0 , 40 0 40 9 LARD. Lard, bladdered in salt Ditto, firkin and keg (Irish) . . Ditto, American (duty paid) . . Ditto, ditto in casks. Suet, fresh and salt (in bond) . . 57 0 47 6 41 6 37 6 42 6