CHEESE FACTORY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 603, 25 October 1880, Page 2

CHEESE FACTORY.

To the Editor of the Wairarapa Daily.

Sm,—l am glad to see that the establishment of cheese factories is being discussed through your valuable columns, and hope that Borne decisive steps being taken by persons interested will be the result.

Your correspondent, "Rennet," has endeavored to show how the factories are conducted in America, but I fear the system would not work satisfactorily here i,e. collecting the milk and buying it by weight. The system I have seen adopted in Victoria, and which, I think, would work best in New Zealand, is that eight or ten persons form themselves into a company, with a capital of from four to five hundred pounds, which capital is partly absorbed in erecting buildings and necessary, plant (land being generally leasehold). The cost of management is generally covered by the sale of the large number of pigs reared and fattened on the curds, or by the bacon and hams cured. The milk is purchased by the gallon, either 4d or Cd, I forget which, but even this apparently low price per gallon pays the vendors than butter making. They deliver the milk at the factory once a day (before 8 a.m.) The milk is tested upon delivery, and paid for weekly. The factory is managed by a man as cheesemaker and a boy as assistant, the man keeping accounts of milk received, &c; the whole being balanced every Saturday by'the secretary of the company. In some instances the factories are the entire speculation of one individual, and in no instance have I known them to fail, unless by utterly bad and expensive management. I feel confident that in a district like this, if a factory was centrally, situated, with fair roads to it, that the speculation would pay a handsome dividend in a very short time.if judiciously managed. Fifty persons taking ten shares, each at say £1 per share, would provide sufficient capital to erect necessary building's, and pay fivo years' rent of land and salaries, by which time the first produce would be sufficiently aged to place in the market, ' -

I would be pleased to hear of the matter being taken in hand by settlers of Greytown, Carterton, Mastorton, Featheraton, and Waihenga, and to assist in obtaining accurate information from the manager of of factories in Gippsland, Victoria, where there is scarcely a settlement with a population equal.to-either of the above named townships, but has its Cheese and Bacon Factory, to supply the Melbourne market, and I am of opinion that tho Wairarapa can be made to produce equal results for the Wellington and other markets of New Zealand, lam&c. ■-■.. W, Book, Greytown, October 25th, 1880.