Untitled

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 12, Issue 936, 21 April 1868, Page 2

sion m the matter of the Toll-gate. Every Napier member (Mr. Irvine excepted) voted for that measure. Now, if the fact has not yet forced itself upon the minds of the townspeople as a whole, it very soon will — that the Toll-gate Act was simply an Act to tax the residents of Napier for the maintenance of inland roads which they rarely see, much less make use of. True, Meanee will also contribute a large proportion of the toll dues, but every shilling paid at the gate will be added on to the price of the produce that is being taken to town. As a milkman said the other day, he must get back his shilling a day either in the shape of an increased price or a greater supply of water. A better illustration of the gross injustice with which Napier is treated in the matter of the toll-gate could not be afforded than in the site chosen for its erection — chosen principally, according to appearances, in order that sheep might pass free to Taupo, Poverty Bay, &c, and wool, sheep skins, &c. to the Fellmongery establishments on the Meanee. Lately, tens of thousands of sheep have been driven, down country, and along the Awatoto road toward parts of the Northern district. Sheep in travelling do a •good deal of injury to the roads and side drains, but, by the ingenuity of the government (which is completely identified with the sheep interest, and does not care a straw for any other) these escape without paying a halfpenny of toll. The same with the immense quantities of sheepskins which pass along the road. But, in truth, the whole of the proceedings with reference to this toll-gate have been of the most flagitious character; and the want of some one able and willing to place them in their true light is much wanted. Then, again, there is the matter of the £7000 for the Great South road, appropriated for that purpose by the Act of 1864 — an Act passed at a time when there was plenty of money available for the other roads. Now, however, it is not so ; and the Council would have re-appropri-ated this money, giving other districts a fair share of it. But no ; this would not suit the book of certain magnates of the land ; and, forthwith, tenders are o*it for road-making afc Waipukurau, Motuotaraia, Eperaima, and other places, (places, mark you, where there is no toll,) with the obvious intention of making way with the greater part of the £7000 before the Council can have a chance of saying a word as to its better disposal. These contracts have been rushed into the mai'ket at such a rate that laboring men enough cannot be got to do the work. This is a fact. Many other reasons might be adduced why, at this time, we want a good man and true to represent us. — I am, &c, A Town Electob. Sic, — In the Heeald of the 11th inst. is a rather long article, highly recommending the attention of the tillers of the soil to the production of cheese, and holding out to them, as encouragement for so doing, almost unheard-of remuneration. The first observation I would make on this fine exposition is, that not a single word is said about the constituents of the soil of this golden cheese-producing land. It is a fact well-known, probably, to Mr. Mort, but never dreamt o£ by the writer of the report jntheJ-tcsira^astaii newspaper, that it is impossible to produce good cheese from a great many agricultural soils, which will yet produce, with good common management, fair crops of other produce, and among them even butter. But every field, from the grass of which good cheese can be made, must have a considerable quantity of clay among- its constituents— that is, of the oxide of aluminium ; for we hare many other heavy descriptions of minerals or earths, produced by the attrition of various rocks or stones, but which are not really clays. Now I believe that there is not a large breadth of clay land in Ncav Zealand ; and, certainly, what we have about us here, has chalk (oxide of calcium) for its basis. If we direct our attention to the marketable cheese produced in England, we find a great variety of qualities, and coming from only particular parts of the country. If enquiry be made, I believe that it will be found that all the soils the grass grows on which produces the best cheese, have a very considerable proportion of clay in them. This is certainly the case in the description called Cheshire, or Cheddar, and the lands on which the cows are fed are frequently not distinguished for great fertility, but are, on the contrary, of the description known as thin-skinned clays. Messrs. Copeland, the great potters in Staffordshire, have or had a considerable breadth of this sort of land in their occupation, from the milk produced from which many tons of the so-called Cheshire cheese were made every year. Double Gloucester cheese— also as edible as good as Cheshire, but not so strong — is produced from land having much clay in it, but richer, I fancy, for general farming purposes, than that from which Cheshire cheese is generally made. The cheese produced from lands whose principal constituents are chalk, sand or peat, or, indeed, any other earths without a full admixture of clay, will be found deficient in richness and quality, that is, of butter, or a rich oily ingredient. This we may witness in our colony of New Zealand, in our Port Cooper cheese. Toast a slice of it, and it generally dries up to a product much resembling a piece of leather ; or blindfold a person, and feed him promiscuously with bits of this cheese and on crumbs of good white bread, two or three days old, and after a few mouthfuls, the writer will be entirely unable to speak with certainty as to which— the bread or cheese— is under the process of mastication. Not so with the cheese made in the eastern counties of Eugland, and there known as Suffolk bang. BloonifieJd, the rural poet, says : — — ■ Suffolk dairy-wives run mad for cream, And leave their milk with nothing but its name; Its name derision and reproach pursue, And strangers tell of " three tunes skimm'd skyblue." Yet is this much derided cheese better — if richness and flavour be of any consequence — than our Port Cooper cheese. Toast a slice of it, and the butter and oily substance flows from it freely ; or eat it, and it yields a pleasant flavour, and pleasantly seasons the bread with which it is eaten. In England the writer happened to witness the effect of an exchange of soil in the l'csnlfcs of the process of cheese-making. The occupier of a farm of several hundred acres, in one of the eastern counties, of a thin class-soil generally, was (in the summer time, when butter was cheap) in the habit of having a considerable portion of the milk produced by a very good dairy of about 20 cows, converted into cheese, which was considered to be of a very good quality; and, properly managed and kept, was sold at about the price of Gloucester or Cheddar cheese. He afterwards removed about thirty miles to another' farm, taking with him the whole live and dead farming stock of the farm he left. The subsoil of the new farm was chalk, and, as a corn farm, was more productive than the old one ; but, with the same cows, the same utensils, and the same persons to manage, the so-called cheese was no bet-

ter than that of Port Cooper, and, where good cheese was to be had, perfectly unsaleable. The making, consequently, was dropped. The butter produced was middling in quality. The report extracted from the Australian paper talks aboutmanufacturing cheese in large establishments, a3 having some virtueintbatmefchod, by which much might be gained. A sufficient number of cows to produce a cheese from one milking is very convenient, there can be no doubt ; but, beyond that, there is nothing in it. Cleanliness and everything else can be as •well attended to in a small dairy as in a large manufactory. There are first-rate cheeses also made by the managers of a few cows, and which, although small, are equal to those from the largest dairies. Cream cheeses, for instance ; also, Stilton cheese, and others of which I know not the name. In Switzerland, the Neufchatel cream cheese is manufactured by the occupying farmers, and sent' weekly, by rail and steamer, for the breakfast-tables of our epicures in London. But one word about pressing or weighting cheeses while being made. Many are pressed much too heavily ; the butter and rich matter is all squeezed out of them. Cream cheeses are never pressed at all ; Stilton, sage cheese, and the other best cheeses, have but very little squeezing. I have witnessed a great improvement in. the cheese of a large dairy, when made after considerably reducing the pressure of squeezing while making. Great care is required in properly breaking up the cheese curd, and more than once, allowing the whey thus to escape. — I am, &c, An Old Countryman.