EXPORT OF BUTTER.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 351, 16 March 1889, Page 5

EXPORT OF BUTTER.

Now chat it has been demonstrated, not only that New Zouland butter and cheese can be sent in good condition to England, hut that a remunerative market for these articles is to bo found there, it is of the utmost importance that care should be bestowed upon the preparation and packing of the troods. Articles in themselves of firs; -cli^s quality aie too frequently spoilt by caieless handling, and thus the whole of the colony's products get an undeserved cv.l reputation. Consumers at a distance cannot be expected to discriminate between one brand and another ; it is all " New Zealand,''and the colony as a whole sutlers from any incompotence or carelessness on the part of individual exporter. On the subject of the handling.' of butter the following remaiks ir m the '"New Zealand Farmer ' for March call for prompt attention :—: — During the past few years the dairying industry has made great strides in Ntw Zealand. Our farmers have been urged and encouraged by both the Government and the Pre^s to (iovote money, time and aneigy to establishing an expoit trade in dany products, and The Fakmkk lias devoted attention to the subject, and done all in its power to guide and instruct its leaders by informing them as to the most appioved scientific methods of dairying piactice. The Government have employed experts to travel through the colony with the object of instructing farmers and managers of dairy factories with legard to the manufacture of butter and cheese, and reports and handbooks ha\e been printed and circulated af the public co-b with the same laudab c object. The result ot all this has been decidedly encouraging, and butter experts from England and America have visited the colony with the view of opening up a regular export butter trade, and have stated that butter is produced in New Zealand equal to the very beat that comes into the London markets. Dairy factories have been established all over the colony, fitted up with cream -eparntors and all the newest mechanical appliances lor carrying on the manufactuie of diiiry pioducts on a large { scale, the prosperity of the whole industiy depending upon the demand that may be created for our butter and cheese in foieign maikets. The industry has been carried on and developed in the \Ve-t Coast districts of the North Is and peihaps more extensively than in any other part of the colony. Owing to natural advantages of soil and pasture, some of the best butter marie in New Zealand is produced in Taranaki, from which province larger quantities are being exported every year. The prospects of the trade have been especially encouraging of late, and therefore it behoves all who have the best interests of agriculture at heart to do their utmost to foster the industry, and to aid in making New Zealand butter more highly appreciated every year by foreign bu^eie. We have a riyht to tely especially upon the Government taking every care to provide reasonable facilities for carrying on the butter export trade successfully, but it would appear that the railway department are not alive to their public duty in this respect. Certain faots have come to our knowledge, which show ti>e most culpable negligence or mismanagement with legard to the traffic airangements in connection with the shipping of butter trom New Plymonth. Our informant is a gentleman whose reliability cannot be doubted, and the fact* as 1 elated by him are shortly the&e : — He was on his way from the South to Auckland, and in the cour=e of his ; journey he spent a day at New Plyj mouth. This was the 16th of February, one of the hotte-t days experienced on the coast this summer, the thermometer registering 130 degrees in the sun. This fact can be verified by the captains of two of the Union Company's steamers, who both admitted that the weather was hotter than anything they had experienced in Aucklan i this year, and our readers will allow the temperature has been rather tiopical up here of late. On landing, our traveller perceived lying on the wharf, most of them exposed to the blazing sun, no le?s than 600 firkins and boxes of butter, intended for transhipment for the English and Melbourne markets. The pa kaees wero all well made of the best totara timber, but, owing to the intense heat to which they were exposed, the butter was actually oozing out of some of the casks. Some of these were covered with black tarpaulins, which under such a sun would be rather worse for the butter than if it had been left exposed like the rest, because the tarpaulins would prevent a free circulation of air around the packages, which to a certain extent might mitigate the injurious efFocts of the heat upon t e condition of the butter. Thi" butter would be shipped to Auckland or Wellington in this semi-fluid condition, and then transhipped for London or Anpttalia. How is it possible that after undergoing such treatment it could arrive at its desi ination in good condition? No; although it probably left the dairy where it was made in perfect condition, and caiefully packed, it would, on being opened up in London.be condemned as interior butter, and sold at a los 3 to the shippers, besides tending to shake confidence in the quality of future shipment*. Surely where a perishable article liiie butter is concerned something should be done to provide shed accommodation under which the goods might be sheltered from the blazing heat of a summer sun, while awaiting shipment on the breakwater. On speaking to Mr Newman, the agent of the Union Company, about the shnmeful-nef-s of allowing the butter to be thus exposed, our informant was told that the railway authorities did not evon provide covered carriages for the conveyance of the butter from New Plymouth to tho breakwater.

A statue of the late Emperor Frederick is to be placed in Sfc. George's Chapel, Windsor, near the statue of the lute Kintr of the Belgian- 1 . It will represent the Emperor in Hussar uniform, and wearing the robes of a Knight^ of the Garler. It is to be by the skilful hands of Mr Boehtn. At Harbour Springs, Michigan, there is a factory which turns out 7,500,000 white birch toothpicks a, day. ■