BUTTER BOXES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 88, 15 April 1933, Page 4

BUTTER BOXES.

WHITE PINE POPULAR,

TRIAL OF SUBSTITUTE

The New Zealand white pine, or, to give it its Maori name, the kahikatea, is a graceful pine which adorns most o£ the New Zealand forests, and is one of the glories of the New Zealand bush in berry time, says a writer in the " Swedish-Australian Trade Journal." The white pine is almost unused to-day, except as a butterbox material. Unlike the forest wonder, the totara —sacred tree of the Maori, who fashioned from its imperishable wood canoes and gods—the white pine will not withstand outside wear. Exposed to the weather it rots, whereas the totara will resist all weathers and all seasons, and emerge in 100 years almost as sound as the day it was put down. The white pine, when it was proved beyond doubt that it would not withstand weather wear, was used extensively in earlier days for many indoor purposes. Then the discovery was made that it was an ideal wood for butter boxes. It was odourless and cleanly, so both Australia and New Zealand took it to heart as a superfine container for exported butter. Millions of feet of white pine have, in a few months, been shipped from the Dominion to Australia to be converted, for the most part, into the familiar container in which butter is exported. But the New Zealand forests of the useful pine are being rapidly cut out; hence the necessity for finding an adequate substitute. Experiments to this end are proceeding on both sides of the Tasman. An interesting experiment is being made in New Zealand with wood-pulp containers for butter export. The white pine box costs 1/5 to manufacture. The wood-pulp substitute, produced from New Zealand woods, can be turned out in quantities for about, 8d apiece, a saving of 9d per container. and somewhere in the vicinity of £ 140.000 a year in package and other costs now borne by the dairying industry. The new pulp container weighs under 31b, or 51b less than the pine box, which means a substantial reduction in ' transport costs. It is constructed in one piece, is wholly sanitary, and, in the opinion of one of the foremost dairy experts in the Dominion, writing in the " Timber Growers' Quarterly Review" (the official organ of the New Zealand Timber Growers' Association), will presently become the butter container of the future. Favourable judgment has already been passed on an experimental butter-filled box sent to London. Queensland also is experimenting with methods for the removal of taint to butter exported in boxes constructed of Queensland pine. These include a shipment of butter recently to London, packed in a veneered box which, it is claimed, avoids all risks of taint to the butter, and, moreover, cannot be imitated by exporters from Russia,, _ who are suspected of packing butter in boxes which closely resemble those reaching the United Kingdom from Australia, New Zealand, and Denmark. The veneered box from Queensland can be manufactured more cheaply than the pine box of New Zealand, but if the Dominion's wood-puln container proves the better and cheaper it may set up another problem for timber and butter men to solve on both sides of the Tasman.