TIMBER TAINT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 341, 30 September 1932, Page 3

TIMBER TAINT

RECENT EXPERIMENTS SOLVI3 IHJTIER-BOX PROBLEM. NEW PIIEPARATION. Any suggestion of timber taint in hutter need not cause one moment's anxiety to interested parties in the future, was an assurance give to The Dominion recently. Aided by a commercial chemist of high standing, and as a result of many months of exploratory work, a preparation has now been perfected which may he economically applied to the insides of hutter-hoxes. The preparation is quiclc-drying, and leaves a hard porcelain-like surface, which can only with difflculty he removed hy seraping. It is impervious to any alkali. A large percentage of the preparation content is derived from a waste product of the dairying industry. The preparation is ahsolutely odourless, and is claimed to he noninjurious to any foodstuffs. It is also a non-conductor, and thus ensures complete insulation between a container and its contents. Its non-poisonous nature is effeetively demonstrated hy the proprietors "having a nip" in water. What appears to offer wonderful prospects for Ihe preparation, besides conferring a national henefit to New Zealand, is the fact that it will now P'ermit of a wide range of timhers heing used for butter-boxes. This will he welcome news to sawmillers, in view of the rapidly-decreasing supplies of white pine, and considering also that it has been the custom for certain leading dairy eompanies to import at least one other timher for hutter-boxes helieved to have heen better than white pine. Information regarding the new preparation, it was stated, has heen communicated to responsible Government offlcers in both the Forestry and Dairy Produce Department, and it has been arranged that whereas white pine and Southland beech are the only two timhers p'ermitted at present hy 'Government regulation to bo used in the manufacture of hutter-hoxes, sample boxes will forthwitli he. mad© of other common New Zealand timbers, and will he treated with the preparation. These will he used for the storage and transit of hutter, and officially reported on after they have heen subjccted to the most exhaustive practical tests. The discovery of such a preparation is not without interest to what must have been an anticipatory Government which' is to-day the largest owner of pinus insignis forests in this Dominion.