BUTTER BOXES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXII, Issue LXII, 17 October 1911, Page 2

BUTTER BOXES.

TEST OF A NEW LINING

A successful trial of butter, being packed in patent lined boxes of Oregon pine, has been made in the Government cool stores at Melbourne. The Oregon pine boxes had a strong resinous odor, and the butter was enclosed in a patent parafined paper envelope, the closing of the box making the lining airtight. The boxes were opened recently, after three months' storage, in the presence of the Minister for Agriculture, and" the butter was found to be sweet and untainted. Mr it. Crowe, Superintendent of Exports, pronounced the test satisfactory. The object of the demonstration, says a Sydney paper, was to test the utility of the lining in connection with the use of local timbers—Oregon, woolly butt, mountain ash, and Queensland hoop pine—for butter-boxes, which at present are made from New Zealanu white pine only, at a cost of Is 7£d, which is regarded as high. The box from which the butter was taken weighed 12|lb, and smelt highly resinous. On removing the paraffined lining, which is so constructed that it is airtight when the lid of the box is affixed, no trace of taint in the butter (Colac) was detected. When packed on June 23 the butter weighed 571b 70z., and when placed on the scale on September 28 its weight was 571b 40z., the loss in the three months being 3oz. No figures were available as to the cost of the paraffined envelope, which may solve the problem of dear butter-boxes, and encourage the use of some of the useful Victorian timbers, but as it weighs only about 2±oz., the price must only be trifling. The lining has also these further advantages that it reduces the loss of weight by evaporation, and keeps the boxes perfectly clean, so that they can thus be used over and over again.