CHEESE AND BACON MAKING IN WAIKATO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 6484, 29 August 1882, Page 5

CHEESE AND BACON MAKING IN WAIKATO.

[from ode own coreespondekt.] Hamilton, Monday. Mr. Bowron, of Canterbury, just returned by mail steamer from the Home country, who has been on a visit to Mr, Firth's estate at Matamata, on his return through Hamilton met the directors of the Waikato Cheese Factory Company, with a view of imparting any information they might desire. Mr. Bowron has had. some fortyfive years' experience of the cheese-making business, and is conversant with the work" ing of cheese factories in Amcrica and else* where, and predict?, with careful manage' ment, a grand future for the Waikato com{| panies. He has been recently concerned ;n the starting of a similar institution in Ash burton, and as butter there has been selling during the last summer at fivepence per pound, and it takes three gallons of milk to make a pound of butter, it is scarcely to be wondered at if the farmers readily encourage an enterprise which proffers to give them 3£d per gallon for milk on delivery, and a bonus on the cheese sold after paying manufactur ing expenses and interest on the comany's ex i penditure. The North Island, and especially this portion of it, Mr. Bowron thinks, will be, in three or four years, supporting a large number of these factories, and beef, mutton, cheese, and bacon will become the staple produce of North Now Zealand, Everything depends, he stated, on the quality of the cheese made, the market in such case will follow as a matter of course, cheese of first quality at Home reaching over £70 per ton. Mr. Bowron gave some valuable information as to the meat freezing scheme and the English markets, stating that the three best months for .New Zealand meat, especially mutton, to arrive in England, when it was least abundant there, were April, May, and June. As our sheep are shorn in November, it would be for New Zealand farmers to meet ttis demand, and have them ready fattened, so as the carcases shall reach London during these months. Some very useful information was imparted on . the matter of hog-feeding and baconmaking, on which our factories will rely for a main portion of their revenue, and some valuable hints given as to the grasses and feed affecting the quality of the oheese produced. ■ .. ,