BUTTER.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 7 March 1913, Page 6

BUTTER.

MARGARINE AS COMPETITOR,

A downward market move.'mo;it in butter this week caused no little, lesenlrnont amongst daiiyineu iu the country, says the Sydney Sua. Many <;f the principal dairying districts luivo been suffering from drought —tour weeks without rain is considered to he a. drought in good dairy districts — and already the How ot milk has begun to show a falling off. It- naturally seems peculiar to dairymen in these circumstances that she price should bo lowered. They rather expected a rise, and many grocer-; in Sydn.-y also shared that opinion. Local influences, however, count for very littio in the Sydney butter market. T.ho supply long ago surpassed the amount required for local consumption, and tho export trade has to 1)0 depended upon to keep the stores From being overloaded. When, thorefcro, the demand falls off in London, the effect is felt keenly in New South Wales, even though there may bo a marked local shortage of ,supplies. GLUT IN LONDON. What interests the local butter maker particularly is the cause ot the decline in the London butter market. The demand has become peculiarly_restricted, although tho price is fairly low other times. For- several weeks the Tooley Street merchants have been sen ding out warnings that ■stocks were becoming unduly heavy, and the suggestion now is, not that stocks have increased, but that tho demand for butter ho*'sunk below the normal; and the reason for that,falling off is ascribed by one prominent Street exporter to tho increase in the demand For margarine. WHAT IS MARGARINE Tho word "margarine" carries with it a sense of dislike. Tfc suggests cheapness and na-sty adulteration, but, in fact, it is quite as wholesome n.s butter, and the law of England .steps in only when an attempt is made to sell it "s butter. It is really household "dripping" :'n pnothn- form. T??<ef fat is ronner in a hiuhly scientific but wholesome wav. a proportion, of real butter, generally about 10 per -cent l ., is added, and the oroduet is washed thoroughly in milk. Care-fully-made margarine can bo distinguished from butter only by a chemical analysis, and the best expert may be deceived. HOW THE EXPERT WAS TRICKED. The exporter quoted above tells a story against himself. Some years ago he visited London, and one day went to one, of the bigo;est establishments in Tooley Street. Butters which came from every part of the world .which exports butter wore in the stores, itnd tho manager invited the Australian vi.s'ttni to go through the samples and pick out the fiu' est to*" ter. There Mere dozens of samples from Denmark and Siberia, France and Belgium, Canada and the United States, Australia and New Zealand, but there were no brands on them to I indicate their origin. • j It took the visitor a eouple of hours I of hard work to go through the sa-m- i pies, and at last he reduced his choice ■ to two, between which he emtld find I hardly any difference in quality. In j his opinion they were the finest butter samples in the world. The man-' ager pressed him to pick one of the samples out a.s the hotter, and after ' a good deal of furter considerate the visitor did >so. '"I eong'-' you," said the manager ,- ' v picked out the hiutter • M ou'vd «ider the best: -'t » wT Aich we conZealand. from New other J , you knOVv what the - * RamolQ as p It # ns finest ! rtM)cli-mac a sn^-garinc-." Late 1 ' the. visitor saw the New /'tHilUfl batter and French margarine put ■ V.p In pats, and the label on them was, I "Choicest Danish butter.''