BUTTER AND CHEESE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 108, 15 November 1915, Page 1

BUTTER AND CHEESE.

A Comparison.

(Bv A. Whibley).

Butter and Cheese, Cheese and Batter! How many times have the changes been rung? How many times hks the farmer balanced the pros and cons in his mind and yet the question is still apparently unsolved.

lhe dairy farmer looks at it thus:—lf cheese is made he will get so much more for his butteifat. Ihis he knows. Biit how much less profit from pigs and calves? This he does not know, and seemingly there is no one to tell him.

Uf course one constantly hears of the man who kept just as many pigs and just as many calves on his whey as he did on his skimmilk, but what has he paid for meal or other additional food to supplement the whey ration? On this point it is the most difficult thing in the World to get an exact anwser, and this for two reasons. First, because not one farmer in a hundred keeps anything like an exact tally of the food the different animals consume, the time it took these animals to come to piofitable size for sale, and the quality of the flesh when slaught> ered and, secondly, because if a man—especially a farmer—is arguing about his business, he is very loth to admit any loss, or lack of judgment, or to confess that he has made a mistake. Farming may be termed an "inexact science," inasmuch as its success or failure depends so very largely on climatic conditions, the laws of supply and demand, and the quality of soil, 88 well as the human intelligence directing operations. Thus one man supplying a cheese factory may make as much profit from his whey-fed pigs and calves ss his neighbour who feds on skim milk, because he has provided a food to supplement the whey at a minimum- of cost, or because he happens to strike a good market, or because the land on which hi 9 animals pasture grows, or is supplied with, a better quality of grass, or because be Btudieß bis animals and brings more intelligence to bear on the management of them.

Thus you will hear of a farmer who boasts—actually boasts!—that his calves and piga get nothing whatever but skim milk and that, therefore, he makes a much bigger profit than his neighbours who supplement the milk with a dry food and is thus—according to Mo. 1 —so much out of pocket! Yet if the number of animals turned out in the season is reckoned, the reputation gained by the farmer taken into accouut, and, in the case of calves, their later performance as milkers an mothers, recorded, it will most certainly be found that the man who supplemented his skim milk ration with some other food is much the better off. Thus it ib claimed by cheese suppliers that they can turn out as good calves and pigs on whey combined with a cheap supple* mentary food intelligently administered as their neighbours who feed with skim milk alone, and 1 think it may be safe to say that an animal reared on whey supplemented by a suitable food, will be of a much more robUßt and healthy constitution than one fed on skim milk alone, and its market value would be greater. While in the case of pigs, all bacon curers know that a pig which has been "topped off" with hard feed, or which has had its skim milk ration supplemented by Borne solid food, makes infinitely better bacon and is worth more to the consumer than one fed on skim milk alone. Therefore it is claimed that a pig can be as well reared on whey supplemented with a solid food selected to replace , the solids removed by the extraction of the cheese constituents.

Having thus disposd of the question of bye-products, there remains the difference in cash value of the two products—butter and cheese. Beckoning the average difference betwesn the prices of butter and cheese as 2d per lb. in ordinary seasons and the yield of an ordinary cow as returning 2401bs of butterfat, that 2d per Ib. difference will give an extra cash return per cow of £2 per head; or if, as is quite a frequent case nowadays, a herd returns 3001bs of butterfat per

head, the increased cash returns will represent £2 10a per head. And tlis extra cash return is gained without the expenditure of one cent. Hie cow that supplies the cfceese factory eats no more, takes no longer to milk and requires no more attention than the cow whose milk is converted into butter. Yet she returns to her owner from £2 tc £2 10s per head more cash; that is to cay that a man owning a herd of 40 cows will draw cheques for bis season's mils amounting to £7OO from the cheese factory against £6OO for the butter factory, on a basis of 3001ts of butterfat per cow and a butterfat return of Is per lb the butter factory. Once more let ua state that this extra profit of £IOO is gained with do extra labour and no extra time, ar.d is in fact net profit. It is there, soild cash! But perhaps the butter factory farmer may have made £l3O out of the etxra calves and pigß he has reared on hiß skim milk ration.

It is admitted, I believe, by competent authorities, that the cheese supplier can rear two-tbirds of the number of stock, that his skim milk neighbour can turn out, so we will reckon that the 40 cons of the butter man turn out 90 head for the bye product of ekim milk —surely a liberal estimate. The cheese, man on the ether hand, can only turn out 60 head, but be has his £IOO safe in his pocket! Now the question res:lves itself into this, "Will the thirty head of Mr Butter bring in £100?" That depends entirely on the markets, the law of supply and demand, and the breed of cows, for as he is a butter man he will naturally affect the high testing Jersey, whose male stock are of no value for beef.. But I think it is very sate tosay that the thirty head will not bring in £IOO, and even if they did that £IOO would not be net profit, lor against it must be placed the cost of supplementary food, the time spent in feeding and marketing and acreage they have required to keep them.

It appears, therefore, that the £IOO caßh in Mr Cheese's pocktt has a greater commercial value and a more reliable one than the 30 head of stock on Mr Butter's farm. So much for the individual farmer. Let us now look at it from tliu point of view of a company. We will take for example the Ballance Dairy Co. and contrast its returns from butter with the possibilities bad it converted into' cheese.

Ballance, be it noted, is in a very good financial position and has, therefore, no interest on overdrafts other than temporary accommodations. From its balance sheet we find the company's receipts for butterfat from whole milk supplied amount to 1,059,012 lbs (for which it paid to its suppliers an average price for the season of 13. SI 2d, or a grand total of £60,950, roughly). Had it converted to cheese, and consigned its output as Dalefield did, it could have returned an average price of Is 8d for butterfat, and thuj distributed among its 200 odd suppliers the very handsome sum of £88,256! an extra sum of £27,306, or an average increase to each supplier of £136 10a! "Yes, but—" say the butter folk—there always is a 'but' in butter!—' You have allowed nothing for the cost of conversion."

Well, the Eltham Dairy Co. have a greater number of creameries than the Ballance Co.; they have eight, while Ballance has but four; and they handle about one and atiuies as much milk, so the cost of conversion to them must have been very considerable, much greater than it would have been for the latter company, yet they earned about £20,000 more with their cheese vats than they did with their churnß, even after erecting the biggest cheese curing r0... u the world at the Eltham railway station. It therefore looks aB though cheese pays.—"New Zealand Dairyman."