THE TELEPHONE WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE POVERTY BAY STANDARD. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 239, 19 September 1884, Page 2

THE TELEPHONE WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE POVERTY BAY STANDARD. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19.

We have written about dairy factories so many times during the last twelve months that the subject has become thoroughly nauseous to us; but as a number of our country subscribers have expressed a desire that we should again take up the subject, we present them with the following facts. The reports of nearly ail our cheese factories seem to be to the same effect —a small loss for the past season, but good prospects in the future. The Terauka Factory shareholders held their annual meeting last week, and the result announced was a debit balance of 133.3 d., of which, however, only a sum of Z 23 was a fair assessment for actual loss. This was explained in a manner satisfactory to the shareholders, who arc not at all disheartened. During the season the factory dealt with 86,285 gallons of milk, which yielded 93,095 pounds of cheese, or a proportion of 17’ ounces of cheese to the gallon—a more than average yield. Sydney, Perth, Brisbane, Rockhampton, England, and other markets have been tried. As explaining how the work of finding a market runs away with the money, in the course of the discussion it was stated that four tons of cheese were forwarded to Brisbane, which ns id. The cost of sending it there, however, swallowed up the profits, for of this only /T 63 ios. sd. was received, the expenses being XTI6 os. 8(1. The freight to Lyttelton amounted to 17s. 3d., and the freight to Brisbane ios. Thus it cost £2 7s. 3d. more to take it to Lyttelton than it cost to take it to Brisbane. The duty on the four tons of cheese was nearly It appears from the annual report of the Waikato Cheese Factory that the price paid for milk has been 4<l. per gallon, that the milk purchased during the season amounted to 103,131 gallons at a cost of /T 833 J Bs. The

balance-sheet in detail showed a loss of /"82 only, a loss which, the chairman explained, was due to some mistakes and miscalculations that would not occur again, and he believed the factory would be soon a great success. Other shareholders made equally encouraging remarks, but it is the results as affecting directly the interests of farmers that agricultural readers should study, so that they may perceive the profits of cow keeping when they can send their produce to a factory instead of depending on the local market for their butter and cheese manufactured under most disadvantageous circumstances. It requires but little calculation to know that any returns per cow like X’S or £lO must be profitable when derived from ordinary cows, a return to be augmented when the cows are specially selected for their milking capacities. We impress upon all farmers whom this paper may reach, the necessity for action, so that preparation may be made in the providing of cows, and in the organization of co-operative claries, before the approaching spring and summer, being honestly convinced that they will find it to their pecuniary interest. That the country generally will derive substantial advantages from the dairy industry, properly carried on, is a moral certainty. We take the following from an article in the Industrial Gazelle'.— “There is only one way therefore of extending the dairy industry to the degree which our soil, climate and circumstances indicate should be general in the colony, and that way is by Associated Dairies. Within the past year or two a few Cheese Factories have been established in various parts of the country, but farmers are so pertinacious of old habits that it is difficult to convince them of the superiority of this method of manufacture, and hence the number of these factories is extremely limited. I noticed in a Southern paper a few days ago that an attempt was made at Woodlands, in Southland, to organize a company, but from the remarks made by many at the meeting it was apparent that farmers prefer to go on in the old “ huggermugger” style in preference to the business-like way of wholesale manufacture under one management. There is sufficient evidence being gradually afforded by the success of the factories already at work that it is only a question of time when the factory system will become, if not universal, at least very general throughout the colony. In the Oamaru district, the Waiareka Factory, the management of which is now satisfactory, has not only been of great benefit to the farmers who supply the milk, but the shareholders may ere long expect to reap substantial advantage in the shape of dividends. In the provincial district of Auckland the Waikato Cheese and Bacon Factory also promises to be soon successful pecuniarily as well as in the production of a first class article. Before giving some facts and figures from the report of the annual meeting of the shareholders of this company, I should like to point out to those who may purpose establishing other factories what I think is a mistake in the organization of the existing companies. Hitherto, so far as I know most of these factory companies have called in the assistance of outsiders as shareholders, and while there can be no possible objection to take their capital to foster the establishment of a company, yet it is unfair and unjust to such shareholders that too high a price should be given for milk ; a price which is undoubtedly profitable to the farmers supplying it, but which leaves no margin of profit for the outside shareholders. This has been noticed as a bad feature, but still there does not appear any attempt or desire to rectify it. No man is purely philanthropic or disinterested, and shareholders who derive no direct benefit from the operations of a company will tire of witnessing the whole profits being swallowed up by the farmers who are the chief gainers in every way. To myself, to some extent at least, is due the existence of the factory at Waiareka, for the idea of the venture was gathered from a lecture I delivered in a neighbouring district on the subject of associated dairying. I then explained that the best system of working a cheese or butter factory was for a number of farmers to organise themselves into a company, providing the necessary funds within themselves, and to divide the whole profits pro rata as to the supply of milk. This is the true principle of co-operative or associated dairying, and until it is fully adopted there will always be a difficulty in getting outsiders to subscribe for shares that may yield no profit, while perhaps there may be attached to them a good deal of trouble in the management. It is hard to understand why farmers should be so disinclined to unite in the formation of factories, as there are facts in abundance to prove that the profits therefrom are sure and sufficiently large to make the keeping of dairy cows — involving no further trouble and expense than milking and conveyance of milk to the factory—a much more remunerative kind of farming than grain growing. Besides the land will not be so seriously exhausted. In connection with every factory there should be a pig feeding and bacon curing establishment, to utilise the waste products of the manufacture. This would create a demand for store pigs, and farmers would have a market for the increase of the brood swine they could so well keep from the produce of that part of their farm not under grass.