THE DAIRY INDUSTRY. MR K. MEADOWS'S VIEWS ON THE DAIRY INDUSTRY.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 307, 13 October 1888, Page 2

THE DAIRY INDUSTRY. MR K. MEADOWS'S VIEWS ON THE DAIRY INDUSTRY.

The Following is a continuation of the article published in last Saturday's News, being further extracts from the " Report on the Dairy Factories of New Zealand, by Mr R. M. McCallum, together with Other Papers on the Subject," recently published by Government : — The following views expressed by Mr E. Meadows, merchant and dealer in dairy produce, in the course of a oonversation with the Hon. the Minister of Lands, are considered of sufficient interest to embody in this pamphlet : — I do not profess to be an expert in cheese- making or dairying : I am simply a merchant. I can tell directly if there is anything wrong with a cheese, but I cannot say at what stage in the process of making the fault lies, or how to remedy it. With regard to the best size and weight of a cheese for the Home market: Make nothing under GOlb -weight ; make them 651b or 701b if you like, but let the same factory keep always to the same size ; every factory should adopt the uniform habit. A 561b cheese should measure llin in height by 14^in., or 10£ in by 13£ in ; any larger cheese than thatshould bo 12in or 13inhighbyl5^in, and in like proportion, A 651b cheese may not do for you out here, but what you need to do is to pu3h the thing for the European market, for it is there you will attain ultimate success. The cheeses of all sizes made in the North Island here do not suit the London market at all ; it is impossible to take an average of a mixed cargo. The best cbeeseforthe London market is a closemade fat or rich cheese, very mild in flavour. Three-parts coloured and onefourth white is about the proportion sold there, and the same in Bristol. I hear there is an institution in Canterbury called the Lincoln Agricultural College, but that it seldom turns out good cheese-makers ; if that is the case they cannot have very good instructors. You want a man who will work, or see that the work is done, and capable, if he cannot get competent men, to do it himself. I once met a farmer in America who made cheese which was unusuallynice,but occasionally there would be something a little wrong. I asked him how he accounted for the difference in quality of his cheeses. " Well," he said, " sometimes I hit it just right, as a player does a croquet-ball ; but at other times, for some reason ■which I cannot explain, something goes wrong." This will serve to show the necessity of some systematic instruction to insure a successful turning out of cheese. You have now thirty or forty years' prosperity before you, and if you do not take advantage of it, the Americans will step in and do it for you. Your great object should be to land the cheese flavouiless ; it should be shipped at about twenty-one days old. Allowing them to develop, as they do in this colony for about six months, is literally spoiling it. The townspeople at Home will not have sliong- cheese ; they must be landed as nearly flavoui less as possible. As a large number of people congregate together in a city their taste becomes more fastidious, and they will have neither fat, salt, nor strong flavour ; besides, the cheese can be allowed to develop to suit the market after arrival at its destination. A cheese-buyer must buy cheese for what it will be in three, four, or eight weeks' time — that is where his judgment is required. In former years the English farmers used to salt their produce a great deal, but it will not do now. I would recommend that where you have cheeses packed together in a case there should be a partition of wood between each, as we find there is an advantage in letting the air get between the cheeses. Each cheese should have a place for itself with a board between. Three cheeses in a case, that is quite heavy enough to handle, and the less they are knocked about the better. I approve of the octagonal-shaped boxes — they do very well ; but the mistake that is made is packing two or three together withoxit ja, board between them. The tempenVure of the cooling chamber on board ship should be about 45' to 50', and I think the air in the chamber should be changed every day. Butter. — In shipping butter, I do not think 3'.ou can improve on the ordinary cask of 70lb to 1001b. In shipping it to a distance, the larger the bulk or body of the butter the better it keeps. I have known instance where large parcels of butter have been shipped from America to England and have fetched good prices, while smaller ones were mostly all rank on the outside. Have the cases made of good sound material, something that will not affect the butter, but never expect to see them back again. After the butter is landed in London it is eight miles from there to the warehouses, and it is there sold to men who take it 150 miles into the country, and sometimes it may go 600 miles — to Glasgow ; hence the impossibility of collecting empties. The chamber on the voyage home should be kept at a temperature of 40* ; a degree or two, however, either way will not make much difference, but 40* is the point to aim at. The butter should be a good natural primrose colour, and, if .you think of introducing anything to give it colour, that is the colour to try for. In the winter, when thu feed is poor, it is better to use a little colouring. I have, howovGr, seen cheese faulty in colour through