NOTES ON CHEESE FACTORIES.

Waikato Times, Volume XX, Issue 1672, 24 March 1883, Page 3

NOTES ON CHEESE FACTORIES.

The '6akht\mii'lPtekhj / Prmhßi^ 'during the past fcwd' ( *WeeVs ' published ablywritten articles under this caption, having special rc^Jren6b to th<S prllttipal'factorieValre'a'dy' 'established in 'New Zealand',"''We I 'tiiakc the fdllowitig extracts, among'Wh'ioh'will be found a few mtcrosting ikttiArk's on the Edondale factory :— It has' been' bbsertf eel, and we think with much ttttth; th&t thftre is 'no section of the eo'rfnriunity who are do' *\o\V to avail' themtfelV6s"of "any advantages which' may be offered to them as those engaged in farniing v totti-abits'. • This imputation is fully verified by the tardy suppoi'twhich has, as, yet, been accorded to the promoters, of the cheese factories already, established in New Zealand. The factories already at work arc— one at Auckland, one in Canterbury (Ashburton), and ono at E'dehdale' (Southland), Our readers are aware thai Government have offered a bonus of £500 for the first 50 tons of cheese manufactured on the American factory principle, t''C same to be exported. \Vd are informed th.it the throe factories' 'referred to have lodged a claim for the bonus offered for the iirst 50 tons. Those interested will wvitch the icsult of tho contest with gicat jnteiest, for the reason that we shall then have tested tho different,«y v stems of cheese-making adopted uy the different factories. The cheese manufactured at Ashbui ton is made on the English principle, which seems to be a combination of the English and American. <Tbe/se , oheescs ,are tor the most part 'large, 'weighing fiom 401b to SOU), and are allowed to reiriain in the presses two ot; three days., In, this the system differs fiom the 'American, which is can icd out in its entirety at Edcndalc. Todesciibc the whole piocess tluough which the milk is passed, ft om the time it roaches the factory till it finds its way on the shelves in the form of cheese, would occupy nioie spnee than avc have at our disposal. Hut we may biicfly state that the leading feature in tho ticatmeiit of the cnnl is to extract fiom it all the whejhfe^/i* it is put into the pi esses. This, «Wn - e informed, is accomplished by a^Himical process, then the cuid is place* in the shapes and submitted to a regulated pressme foi eighteen houis. Thecheescs aic of a uniionn weight of IMb .when cured. The advocates of the system adopted at Ashbui ton avguu that their cheese will be found to airivc in (better condition in the Homo market than that made on the American principle., as briefly described above. We have visited the Aghbui ton and the Edendale factories, and we must admit that to all appearance and taste tiie Edendale cheese was quite equal to that at Ashburton, but how it will stand the voy-ige to England remains to be proved. The tact that so little, milk is being supplied at Edendale l>y outsiders, might lead to the supposition that tho f.iotory was not well suited for receiving supplies of milk, but such is not the case. The small quantity of milk supplied by outsideis is only in ueeoidance with our pieviously expies&ed opinion, viz , that farmers, as a rule, arc blow to avail themselves of then advantages, especially when those advantages aie piesented in «i new form. Mv M'Callum, the manager, is hopeful that as the farmers become accustomed to the factory they will support it butter than they have as yet done. We cannot help thinking that they will only be studying their own best interests in doing s,o. ,They would, ,we think, find that 5d per gallon for their milk will pay better in the end than converting it into butter, and risking an uncertain maikct. The stock of cows kept by the company <ue not such as we should like to have seen ; they aie, however, the besb which could be got together in the time. They arc being weeded out, and will soon show a great improvement. We noticed a polled Angus cow, a be.mtiful ciciture, sleek and fat, and we weie informed that she was a good aveiage milker. It stiuck us. that <i herd of this bleed w ould alwa/\ % be in profit. As soon as the milking qualities began to fail they vv ould in a very short time be ready for tho butcher, and, as the manager lcmaikcd, they bad the great advantage ot being hoinlc-js. We noticed, by a local report, tli.it the cheese manufactured last year sold at BUI per 11>, and as they estnmtc th.it the quantity of milk iei|uiied to pioduce lib of butter will pioduce 3lb of cheese, it follows that this puce foi cheese is equal to 2o per lb tor butter. We are not, however, disposed to accept this as stricth aeeuiato, li.\ah\£ ouisclveh tested the question and found that 21b ot cheese to lib ot butter was the pioportion. But the n.ilk in New Zealaud may be richer than the milk 111 the Old Coimtiy, which would account for the difleicnce. Tlieic are about J .10 pigs of the BerUsline breed kept not far from the factoiy, all of which had the cartilage at the end ot the end of the snout removed. It propeily performed they can never root, and the animals w ill be spared much pain and annoyance caused by the frequent necessity for renewing the lings. With reference to the diffeipnt <-y=tcirw of daily factoiies we especially dcsne to impress upon those who meditate establishing factoiies the necessity foi e\eici«ing caution as to w liicli &yste:n they deter mine upon adopting, whether the A-iien-can or the English. It i.s luudly to be expected that ootli systems will ansvvei equally well, and it is just possible tli.it one or other of them may be found to be quite unsuitable tor our conditions. Both systems have their advocates, who dec-hue that the other systcn is sine to prove a failure. Mr Bowron is cntiiely in favour of the system (English) adopted by the pioinotcis of the Ashlnuton company, which may be distinguished fiom the Edendale (or Ameiican) as large v. small cheeses. Wo shall not have to wait long for results, as both factories will soon be prcp.ued to Map considci able quantities. With regaid to the bonus of £500, offered by the Government for the iirst fifty tons of cheese mannfactmed and exported fiom the colony, made on the American factory principle, there seems to be some mi&appieheiibion in the minds of the several competitors and othcis ; the one side assciting that the bonus is simply offered for the first fifty tons of cheese made on the American factory pi inciple, which means that the cheese must be made in a factory where the milk is obtained from the surrounding fanners ; while the other side insists that the cheese must be made not only in a factory, but strictly according to the method adopted in the American factoiies, and that only cheese thus manufactured can compete. Without offering an opinion of our own, we may state that Sir John Hall informed us that, so far as he was concerned in the matter, the intention was that the bonus should be given for the first fifty tons of , cheese made in a factory on the American B)le ; that is, that the milk should cured from farmers and others, reBs of any special method of making following extract from the Marie Lane Express will be read with interest, as it bears on the subject of making cheese : — Amongst the minutes of the evidence published on behalf of the Royal , Agricultural Commission the following facts are attested by the Hon. E. W..Coke, of Longford Hall, Derby, who was one of the witnesses examined, which are worthy of the notice of dairy farmers. Spooking of the Longford Cheese Factory he 'says thajb in Derbyshire it is usually considered that a cow needs three acres of grass ; but that rule docs not apply in the case of a largo • farm. For instance, a farmer holding 300 acres would not v have 190 cows, whereas a farmer occupying 1 sixty acres may very often keep twenty cow«: The reason' for this difference is/, that 'in ex-, ceediug 4 certain number' of , coWs on a farm the milking becomes v a' 'difficulty. Tho strength of a dairy farm is dependent upon the 'number ooff f hands ! that' can be found to milk ; those hands being; during ihe" intervening hours w\ien milking is ' nbb gdlbg 6h,'p ! l l /!»fitaHly : ' employed'dth'er\rw'opafhe,farj», ;j JfoCoki. eay9 Qiat in h/is neighbourhood the milk i« almost en ;

■i i urn muni, i t »w. IU » '|ll,ji^.^,, „ ■jn.l.j.^t.n ,i a, In, l tirely made into cheese, which is manufactured at the chi'e'es'S factory in hia parish. The factory was started under the • management <<ofi rAnreuicaps, and; during tli? first year they«inado*cheese xm thd American' system, pure and simple; bu i it was soon fo,tmd|that this was useless, and that if they could not do better than make, American' cheese the undertaking had better be abandoned. Accordingly, during the second year, the factory propi letors adopted the Cheddar system of cheese-making, with the same kiiid of implements as tliose used on the other side of the Atlantic. The cheese from this factory has since its establishment in 1572 averaged 74s Od per cwt., and the , milk lias been bought at an average of 6'|d per gallon. Mr Coke is of opinion that this average is nearly 10s per cwt. higher than the average home-made chcc?e, and the managcis of the factory consider that they can make the cheese at about half the cost at which it can be produced m pi ivate dairies. We feel sine that the same rcnaiks will apply equally to ourselves, and wo shall have the great advantage of having our cheese made of a nnifoim quality ami &i/,e. The promoteis of the Edendalu factory, as well as tho.-'o of the A&libuiton, complain of the tauly , suppoit given to, the factory by tiie surrounding farmers. In searching for a cause for tins we think that one at least may be found in the tioublc ot having to cart the milk to the factory morning and evening., "We think that if the factory people wore to' keep a couple of e'arlt, constructed for the purpose;, and would send lound themselves to the Beveial dailies tor the milk, they would find it would remove at least one difficulty. This plan is .idopted at the College Farm, ami we believe that it answers admirably. In conclusion, wo would again ui go that the greatest care should be exorcised in establishing cliee-jC factories, in oidci that the lie.st possible system may b'j adopted. Many an mdustiy, good in itself, lias lcceivod a check m its infancy tlnougb mismanagement, fiom which it took yeais to lccovei. Let us thncfoic avoid the like misfoitune by a caieful study of tlio systems now being tested before us.

Tjik number of r .lhv.iy v.mt > Irillori \u England jivcivifrosabonL fiOO ;i your, mid the ruirnhrt injmcrl iibout 3000, Mr J L Ponifi-hihlsf 1 ; .1 Ic^u-y of about £8701) to the Paris Gcogi.iph'wil Society, h) bo expended by them in life annuities todc-eiving-geogiaphical exploivis of Fiencli oiisrin. None of theso annuities is to exceed £(50. Tin. Pauicnt of Wiiht. — The nearest form to line wheat now found wild in the Butish Isles is the creeping couchgiass, a peiennial closely agiecing in all essential pulienlais of stiuctine with our cultivated annual wheats But in the south Euiope.au region we find in abundance a lar^e series of common wild annual glares, forming the genus JSgilopsot technical botany, and exactly rcsemblinu tmc wheat in eveiy point except the M/e of the qiuin. One .species of tins gcuu-5, ovata, a small, hard, why annual, is now pretty gcncially recognised among botanists as thopaicnt j of our cultivated coin. Thoic was a good icason, indeed, why pumitivc man, when he liist began to select and rudely till a few seeds for his own use, should have specialty affected the glass tiibe. No other family of plants has seeds richer in starches and glutens, as indeed might natui.illy be expecte 1 fioin the extreme, diminution in the number of seeds to each flower. On the other hand, the flowers on each plant ar<3 peculiarly nunieious ; so that we get the combined advantages of many seeds, and rich sevds, bo seldom to be found elsewhere, except among the pulse family. The expeiinient conducted by tbo Agncnltuial Society in their College gniden at Cnencester have also shown that caieful selection will pioduce large and lich seeds from jrEgilops o\aU, consideialily icsemblinir true wheat, aflei only a few yeais' cultivation. Primitive man, of coiuse, did not piocct'd neatly so fast as that. Of the cailiest attempts at cultivation of /i'jgilops, all tiaces ate now lost, but we can (.Mtiicr that its tillage must have continued m some unknown western Asiatic legion for some time before the neolithic peno'l ; for in that pouod wo find a rude enly form of wlie.it abeady considerably de\ eloped among tlie Swus j^ake dwcllmus. The other cultnated plants by which it is theie accqinp.inied, and the nntiuo of the gaiden weeds ■which had followed in its. wake, point back to Central or Western Asia a& the land in which its tillage fiitt begun. l«'iom that legion the Swiss Lake dwollcis, biought it -with them to their new 'lome among the Alpine valleys. It difFcied much already from the wild ..-Efiilops in size and stature ; but at the same time it was far fiom basing attained the stately dimensions of our modern corn. The ears found in the Lake dwellings arc shorter and narrower than our own ; the spikelets stand out more horizontally, and the giains are hardly more than half the s) y e ot their .modern descendants. The same tiling is true in analagous way.s with all the cultivated finite oi seeds of the stone nge ; they are invariably much .smaller and poorer than their representatives in existuig fields or gaidens. From that time to this the piocess of selection and ameboiation has been constant and unbroken, until in our own day the descendants of these httlo I'legtadod bllies, readapted to functions ( under a tiesh )(f/imc, have come to cover almost all the cultivable plains in all the civilised countues, and supply by far the largest pait of man's food in ldiiope, Asia, Ameiica and Australia. —Guant Ai-llin, in Mnciiutlmi'f; Maijtizinc.