INDUSTRIAL NOTES

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 1031, 7 May 1883, Page 2

INDUSTRIAL NOTES

Five bacon factories in Oamaru (Otago) cure some fifteen hundred carcases per year. The industry is on the increase. The Directors of the Canterbury Linseed Oil, and Fibre Company,, have arranged for a site at Southbridge for works to receive their flax-scutching machinery, now landing at Lyttelton. As soon as the necessary preliminaries are completed, the erection of the works will be proceeded with. The Dunedin Star says that a Mr M’Lennan, of that city, has invented a dough-kneading machine which is calculated to save bakers a large amount of labour and time. Ha has had one made, the woodwork by Guthrie and Larnach’s Company and the ironwork by the Otago Foundry, and the machine is on view at the yards of the latter firm. The principle is simple, consisting only of a revolving arrangement of knives and bars to mix the dough thorough!}', but it is so ingeniously applied that the machine can be easily worked by manual labour. Mr M’Lennan claims that two men can put through twelve sacks of flour ; daily by -using his invention.' 1 ••-- X. The first rug manufactured by Mr Mitchell at the Canterbury Carpet Works has been presented to the Mayor of the city as a memento of his visit. Liquorice-farming, practised in England since the days of good Queen Bess, and lately introduced into. New Zealand, is, says the European Mail, tow being.recommended to colonists- as' a remunerative form of agricultural enterprise. The Glycyrrhida glohra is a root that “ pays,” no doubt, under certain conditions, and the plant is easily propagated. There is, however, a'good deal that ’some colonists might overlook before ,the resultant juice can be converted into an article of commerce. The “ sugar ” is obtained by infusion, and has, after proper evaporation, to bo chemically treated with sulphuric acid, Many who could very well grow the root would, I fancy, fail lamentably in the after treatment, and as the total import of liquorice into the United Kingdom does not at present exceed £IOO,OOO per annum in value, I should fancy that colonists would do better to stick to more legitimate products that are better known in our produce markets, and for which (he demand is, virtually unlimited. At a public meeting held at Kihikihi last week, it was agreed to start a cheese factory, with a capital of £2,000. The Waikato will shortly bo fully stocked with cheese factories. Wo arc glad to know (writes the Bruce Herald ) that a local fund of not less than £IOO, which is being raised in order to enable a few of- the working potters to resume operations upon their own account, is now in so advanced a state that success may be considered sure. We (New Zealand Times) hare just received the .following description of the process employed in manufacturing iron from iron sand at Onehunga, and it is of interest, not only as being entirely different from the process heretofore tried, but also as being a now departure in ironmaking :—The magnetic black sand found in such quantities on our coast is a black oxide of iron and, once freed from its oxygen, is a pure metallic iron, which can bo worked in the same manner as scrap iron or iron filings. As worked at Onehunga, the sand is first cleaned by means of a magnetic separator of all sea beach sand and other impurities. It is then mixed with a certain proportion of carbon and put into retorts, where it is subjected to heat for twenty-four hours. The heat causes the oxygen in the iron to be expelled and it unites with carbon, leaving. the iron sand in a pure, rough, metallic state. When the sand has boon brought to this condition it is let into an ordinary puddling furnace by

opening a valve, and there worked as ordinary scrap into a ball, which is hammered and rolled into bars. The process possesses the great advantage of being a very cheap one, as the heat used for deoxidising the ore is the waste heat from the puddling furnace;,and is therefore no expense. In short, bar iron can be made from iron sand at no greater expenses for labour and fuel than from pig or scrap iron, leaving the difference between the cost of such pig or scrap iron and iron sand as a profit. The supply of iron sand on our coast is practically inexhaustible, and with so cheap a process of working it, New Zealand should become a large iron-manufacturing country* "" " While Christchurch and Dunedin have flourishing woollen factories established in their, vicinity, paying good dividends to their shareholders, and .even smaller towns dike Ashburton are-[.lunching out pluckily into similar enterprises, Wellington remains conspicuously inactive and apparently devoid of energ}’ in this matter. Everybody (remarks the Post) seems to admit the great benefit that would be conferred on the district by the establishment of such an industry in our midst, yet nobody seems able or willing to start it on a practical basis. If a genuine effort were made in this direction, with the sole object of establishing and working a flourishing manufactory, we believe if would be warmly supported by the public in this city and neighbourhood, who have already shown their faitli in this particular industry in a practical manner by investing largely in the Otago and Canterbury, [undertakings.'/ Only recently, it is wellknown, no less than £14,000 worth of shares were applied for in this city in the Kaiapoi factory alone.