THE EXPORT OF BUTTER.

Southland Times, Issue 1540, 20 February 1872, Page 3

THE EXPORT OF BUTTER.

g IK> — Tour publication of this day's date gives a quotation of the prices current in Bombay for English, and Irish butter, and those prices should surely afford some comfort to our despondent dairy farmers. The consumption of butter at this price, it will doubtless be urged by many, will be very limited, and to a certain extent such an assertion would be true, as such expensive butter would only be used by the European community, or the wealthier classes among the Parsee and Mohammedan population of that beautiful island. It must be borne in mind, . however, that such a population is a very large one, greater than that never-sufficiently-to-be bounced-about city of Melbourne; and consequently they have the capacity to consume a pretty tall quantity of butter, even at Is 10|d to 2s per lb ; and it might suit some of our butter-curers to give that market a trial with a few hundred kegs of really good butter salted to suit a tropical climate. Besides this kind of butter, there is literally an unlimited consumption for " ghee," which, however, would possibly require to be put up in dhubbers instead of kegs. The mere fact of its being put up in dhubbers is only an additional reason why our dairy farmers should try the ghee trade, as it would create another native industry in the shape of giving our fellmongers and tanners a chance of exercising their skill in the making of dhubbers, which, for the information of those unskilled in eastern traffic, I may explain are just large skin carboys, about the size of the huge vitriol bottles so extensively in use by chemical manufacturers in England. The process of making butter into ghee could easily be mastered by our dairy people ; and the general price of ghee in the Indian markets could as easily be ascertained by reference to any Indian price current. These few hints may be a " wrinkle " to some of our lecal dairymen, or might be turned to account by the more enterprising dairy farmers of our neighbors of Canterbury. If these few lines should elicit any further information likely to ease the .New Zealand market of its surplus produce of butter, and help us to exchange with our Indian brethren a dish of the " milk of human kindness," my object will be attained. — ■ I am, &c, Ghee Dhubbee. Invercargill, 16th February, 1872.