Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News. SATURDAY, JUNE 13, 1908. OUR DISTRICT.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43337, 13 June 1908, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News.

SATURDAY, JUNE 13, 1908. OUR DISTRICT.

Ihis above all —to thine own self be true, ! nd tl must, follow as the night the day thou can si not then be false to any man Shakespeare.

PAST, PRESENT, & FUTURE. (Written specially for the Tk Aroha News.) [A.I3. —Copyright,] WHEN PIGGIE GOES TO MARKET. In those worlcrful American factories where poor piggie enters alive but protesting, and departs in sections, diminished by nothing bp! his hapless spueal, there is no doubt a strong touch of tragedy—the sort of thing which always inclines the tenderhearted toward vegetarianism. In Mr Rowe’s Factory, however, the tragedy is eliminated, for the supplypig former i§ allowed to have that i

part of poor piggie’s brief drama all ,to him self.

Although the farmer is allowed — the squeal—he does not retain much else, and it seems to he a principle on the part of the bacon manufacturer to allow no waste. When the • pig is bisected his backbone and his head are boiled down for tallow—one feels that backbone and brains ought to command a higher use. It is only after he has undergone this diminution that one feels any inclination to make piggies acquaintance. When he is reduced to fractions and placed in the salting room to be salted and turned (with great care and oversight in hot weather) he ceases to be impossible. Is he not now mere hams and flitches, such quantities of him to be sure, lying spread upon a long, wide shelf, -undergoing the curing process, or stacked up in an imposing pile by the door, ready to be carried to the huge vat where the first washing (in hot water) takes place. These hams and flitches look wonderfully white and tempting, one feels that it is a pity they need anything more done to them—but they do all the same.

Just come upstairs and you will see them, a loft full, either fully seasoned and ready for despatch, each like little Miss “ Edquette in a white petticoat,” or unadorned with the spotless muslin, merely hanging here to season before being washed a second time, and smoked preparatory to this adornment. Look up at the gables, there they are full of white looking hams drying and seasoning after the first wash, “ handsome farin ” surely, twelve hundred pieces have been washed this week we are told. When the flitches and hams have been dried after the second wash they are smoked straight away. The smoking room where four hundred pieces may be treated at once, consists of a room with a grating for a floor. Beneath this grating the fire smoulders down below, as for a night the bacon is left there to undergo the process. When it emerges it is placed in the white muslin covers, which are on the principle of the calico sold for pillow slips, that is requiring no seam up the side. It is tied at each end, put into cases and despatched to the Auckland agent three times per week.

Mr Rowe commands a large area of supply, for this factory is the only one this side of Frankton. The 'enterprise has grown rapidly since the factory was erected. Last season, for the nine months, 6,400 carcases were treated, while it would have been possible to market 18,000. This season a large increase in the output will be realized when the creameries close.

It is in view of the rapid advance of factory enterprise that we realize, and cannot hut insist upon the great importance of a railway direct to Tauranga. It is not only the pressing question of a less circuitous means of export that demands attention, but also the important question of supply. Last season, owing to the drought it appeared likely that the supply of bacon would have to be supplemented from Tauranga and Te Puke. This would have necessitated the sending of the pigs from these places, which are our neighbours, all the way down to Auckland, and fetching them thence by rail. The risk of such a roundabout route in the extremely hot season, to say nothing of the expense, are serious drawbacks to such an industry. ' ' So far the output of this factory has been absorbed in the Dominion. This is a state of things which a season or two will see altered. Already the factory’s requirements have outstripped the present premises, and new buildings extending over the whole area of the section at present occupied by the factory and the adjoining hall are to be erected, , That the time is rapidly approaching when Te Aroha will demand a direct entrance to the waterway of the world’s markets is entirely obvious, and unless something quite unlooked for overtakes our district, to arrest development, our exports would presently make railway to Tauranga a very well paying piece of line. There is another point to consider, and that is : why should all the machinery, the huge boilers and refrigerators, now in use in our factories have to come so far by rail ? The Taurangans and the To Arohities will need to combine and see this defect of communication set right.