BUTTER IN MELBOURNE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2231, 23 July 1891, Page 3

BUTTER IN MELBOURNE.

The Argus say a,:—The Melbourne housewife wonders why strenuous efforts should be made to export butter to London, while she is called on to pay 2s 6d per lb for it in Melbourne during the summer months. Mr D. Wilson, dairying expert for the Agricultural Department, offered an explanation during his lecture at the Working Men’s College the other night, which may or may not be deemed satisfactory. It is fallacious, MrWilsbn says, to suppose that the exporting of butter is the cause of high prices here. In 1888 next to none was exported, and the price was 2s 6d per lb, and this price remained . unchanged the following year, when one thousand tons were exported, prices were lower than in the two previous years. The fact is, says Mr Wilson, that the butter trade is rapidly changing. The heavily salted butter of a few, years ago is now almost unsaleable, and the time is fast approaching when every week must find its own supply of good fresh butter. What, he asks, is to be done with our large surplus for three months in the spring 1 It cannot be kept until the consumer requires it. The only cure is to export what is not required locally, and by the aid of ensilage and green fodder feeding keep up the supply of good fresh bntter all the year round. The dairying industry depended on export and ensilage, by means of which the farmers of Victoria could raise themselves to a position of prosperity unequalled in tde palmiest days of wheatgrowing.