FRESH VERSUS SALT BUTTER.

Waikato Argus, Volume VI, Issue 411, 18 March 1899, Page 4

FRESH VERSUS SALT BUTTER.

It must have struck the constant reader of market reports how regularly salt butter, unless very low in price, meets with but a dull sale ; while at the same time fresh butter is reported in good demand at prices 50 per cent, higher. This is the substance of the report, week after week, and month after month throughout the summer; and though prices for salt butter usually rule higher during the winter, fresh also moves up in a corresponding, if not greater ratio, so that the position is really, never altered; and the question naturally resolves itself in che mind of the'observant reader —why do the farmers continue to make salt batter, when fresh sells so much better ? To this, more than one answer can be given. First, lengthened custom, handed down from the days when butter, salted in summer and held until winter readily brought it Is to Is 6d per lb, or if sold at once was required for the shipping and mining, and out of the way places where fresh butter was not procurable. Secondly, the difficulty to many of printing and forwarding fresh butter to market, in weekly or by-weekly lots, particularly where this has to be done by rail or steamer. But above all, is the supposed impossibility of handling fresh butter, without some freezing apparatus, and forwarding it in good condition by rail or ship during the hot summer months, particularly where no special facilities are provided for its proper care duriDg transit. These may be expected as the chief reasons why the armers, particularly those living far back from the towns and out of reach of creameries, continue to salt their butter, in place of selling it fresh ; though they are, or should be fully aware from the market reports, that they will have to accept a price fully 50 per cent, less than if the same goods were done up in different form, or take the risk of holding for a future market. Talk about the conservatism of the farmers. Here we have an example of it, involving a weekly loss of 50 per cent, on one Hue of produce "alone. Is it surprising that the farmer is ever behind in the race for wealth, when he is content to throw away weekly 50 per cent, of the value of his dairy produce, which, by the exero'ißO of a little thought and management, might be entirely prevented. But assertion is not proof, and the reader may begin to fear that he has again just struck another theoriat, who probably proposes to pool the butter, as already suggested with wheat, sugar and many other Bchemes that were—and still aresound enough on paper, but never—in their practical application, seem to get any further, possibly through the absence of that key stone and so many arches—capital. But capital is not required to save the Waikato farmer the loss of 50 per cent, on his butter. The latter he already possesses, a beneficient State has furnished him with a railway, and never, or very seldom, charges more than double what should be a fair charge for the services rendered, and a big population in Auckland provides a demand for fresh butter, if good quality, and the remedy, so simple as to be scarcely worth the telling, is, to put up the butter fresh in lib. or s jlb. squares, wrap in butter paper and forward to any of the produce auctioneers who advertise in The Waikato Akgus, and the result will be 50 per cent, better returns, than if the same produce were sent down salt in kegs. " Special box of course," nothing of the kind, fruit boxes have never been regarded a 3 possessing any special qualifications for the carriage of dairy produce, yet tresh butter packed in these flimsy structures has, regularly, brought—dur-

ng the paßt summer—7d to 8d per lb, at auction, when salt of equally good quality was neglected at 4d to 5d per lb. Simple, is it not, and this is all, is it. There is just one more point which must not be overlooked, and wherein some people, the proprietor of Pencarrow for instance, may consider that they discover the whole secret. The butter must be made from milk obtained from Jersey or half-bred Jersey cows, such butter is not perishable in the ordinary sense of the term. lb bliows no weakness for running out of boxes in hot weather and may be safely sent over lone; distances, just as fresh meat, dead poultry, pigs or any other of the same class of produce, and may be depended upon to open up at the auctions all right, whether this takes placo the following day or a week after, but put the same butter into kegs, salt, and it will sell, with difficulty, at 2d to 4d per lb. Whl.'h then is best for the dairyman ? To stick to the old traditions and make salt butter for a race who have long since given up eating it, for neither at survey camps, on coastal vessels, in bushes, nor even at the gum fields, is salt butter now eaten, or go with the times, get Jersey cows (or those having the strain in thorn) and forward weekly consignments of first-class butter to market at all seasous of the year and get the top price for it ? echo answers " which." '