MR A. CALDER'S DAIRY, WHATAWHATA.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2607, 28 March 1889, Page 2

MR A. CALDER'S DAIRY, WHATAWHATA.

While visiting a farm a few miles from Hamilton yesterday afternoon, I spent a short lima most agreeably in the dairy, when the whole process of butter-making was gone through. Having seen the whole operation, I could not help thinking " how the old order changeth," and contrasting its manufacture six years ago when I was staying with these same friends of mine. Then the wife of the farmer did all the duties of the dairy, now she is like Othello, her occupation being gone : for now it is her husband who makes the butter. Six years ago this fanner's butter was the best in the market; it still occupies the same high place, for I am told it leulisx twopence per lb more than any other. The question then suggests itself, what is the difference between the two methods ? Simply this ; in the first case it took four times longer than the present method, although the latter is more laborious. In the first case the butter after churning was a good deal handled— that is in the washing and salting, etc. Now, from the time the cream is removed from the milk pans till the butter is ready for use, the hands never come in actual contact with it. The dairy is a roomy one—not of the usual match-box kind—and everything kept severely clean. The stock-yard and milking shed are also well looked after, and have a flooring of rough boards, which is found more easily cleaned than the otdinary earth one. One of the chief improvements in the making of the butter is the churning in a patent churn, which, up to the present, has not been surpassed. The churn is of the barrel type, and has three narrow, separate pieces of wood fastened to the inside. They are so skilfully fixed that all the cream is acted upon at the same time, and with equal pressure. In the old churn? milk used to get into the globules of butter, and could never bo thoroughly pressed out. After the cream is churned the butter is worked in a Yankee brake, weighed, and a proportionate quantity of salt worked in. Mr Caldor's cows are a cross between Ayrshire and Shorthorn, got by a famous bull. Strange to say, there is no hay kept on tho farm because the feed is so crood that cows will not even eat the hay in the winter time. In proof of that, some years ago Mr Calder made four acres of white clover hay, and it was three years before it was got rid of. This season, off of sever, acres, two stacks of wheat wore made, they measure 33 x 14 feet and 11 x2l feet. The land cannot be beaten, it is alluvial viver flat, and at one time belonged to the Maoris. After seeing tho butter made, I was invited to make a practical test at Mrs Calders bountiful table, needless to say, the invitation was readily accepted and. thoroughly appreciated. —(Contributed.)