FARM AND DAIRY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 2542, 28 September 1893, Page 2

FARM AND DAIRY.

THE EXPORT BUTTER TRADE.

Mr H. W. Bartram, wbo has had a very wide experience in the Australian batter trade, has jaat returned to Mel* bourne (says the ArgUß of August 9) from a trip to England and the Continent, where two enbjeota, viz., the best Bjstems ia modern dairying and the prospects of the Australian export trade, have mainly occupied his attention.

The methods by which a- high standard are maintained in Denmark, Normandy, and Sweden impressed him very greatly. Local committees, inveßted with arbitrary powers even to fixing the weekly rate at which it Bball be pnt on the market, control the trade. Batter shows are held at short intervals in every dairying centre, at which it is not merely optional for dairymen to compete, bat compulsory. Any defeots are noted, and the attention of dairymen drawn to them. If they are repeated, and the exhibitor deolares that he cannot acconnt for deterioration, an expert— 11 and," says Mr Bartram, '• when yon speak of an expert on the Continent you mean a man who can be taught nothing with regard to butter "—visits the dairy, and if there be a oanse for deterioration he will find it out.

" We bave to fight tbe Continental trade with high quality and moderate prioes. They bave timed tbeir cattle for tbe beßt English season— everything that could be done to that end has been done — and, though a great deal is said of the severity of their winter season, babd-feeding has been brought to a high pitoh of perfection, and whatever may be the season all cattle in Normandy, Denmark, and Sweden are practically stall-fed. We can get tbat winter trade only by making it uoprofitable for the Continental dairyman to time bis cows for winter oalving. «

" In the English retail trade there are a few grades well defined. ißutter sells at Is 4d, 1b 23, or ala a poujtd. We oannot get tbe highest price if there is Danish butter in tbe market, and though oar butter may be bb good, the fact tbat it is not Danish drops it into the second grade, for there is nothing intermediate, Further, when the Is 4d demand has been supplied, the rest of tbe batter in tbe market drops to la 2d, and when that in turn haß been met, the shilling demand alone remains, whatever the quality of the prodaoe may be.

" We have to be content," Mr Bartram Bays, " to first try and capture the middleclass trade-— and very often to make the third-olass price for first- olass batter. When we have a monopoly of tbe middle trade it will be soon enough to try ior the highest. Danish butter scarcely varies in quality at all. Oars doeß, and will vary in spite of all we may do at this end to keep up the cbaraoter of the shipments. Consequently, onr best factory brands will make their way sooner than the bulk; for, when repeated shipments show a particular brand to be of good and even quality, it is the first to sell. Some of our best brands now are not sold as batter at all— they are bought to blend with margarine, and the product, strangely enough, would be thought better batter than the best of our second-class pare butter at any rate. Don't imagine tbat it is a slur on our butters. It is really a high compliment — and there is one brand of Kynetor butter particularly, nearly all of whioh is bought for tbe margarine trade."

Speakine on tbe Continental factory method, Mr Bartram says they are very much the same as ours, but dairymen take muob more care of tbe milk. It is refrigerated before it leaves tbe dairy, then warmed up for the separator and instantly cooled again. That warming of the oreams, be believes, accounts in partß for tbe difference in favor of Australian ani Continental butters. Then again tbeir paokages, whether boxes and casks, are all so clean and tasteful. " You never Bee an old cracked box or one made of green wood. Indeed, they are so careful oi appearances that tbe new butter casks and boxes are all covered in heseian, so that they re ay be turned ont in the English market clean and attractive. Again, I facoy they gain something in that their milk is better managed than ours, while factory management varies very slightly. Here every manager has bis qwn ideas, and for a time, until success demonstrates which is best, one man's views' are as good as another's. Abroad they have got past all that. Danish butter when tinned does not get tallowy like ours. Dairying on the Continent is not slackening through Australian competition. On tbe contrary, Ireland and Germany particularly are revolutionising their methods, and largely increasing their output."

Asked to what conclusions his Oootinental experiences bad led him, Mr Bar train cays first of all it is unwise to largely- increase our small factories, especially when milk has, contrary to tbe Continental custom, to be carried lons distances to tbe creamery. Some of tbe lesser factories, he thinks, will drift eventually into the bands of tbe largest dan ymen— private dairies, contrary to the custom here, always make the best butter on the Continent. We ( Concluded on page 4.)

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