BUTTER EXPORT.—IMPORTANT INVENTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7403, 11 August 1885, Page 6

BUTTER EXPORT.—IMPORTANT INVENTION.

Now that dairy produce is likely to form no email portion of the future exports of the colony, anything that tends to extend that trade must be regarded as an advantage to the oolony at large. With the increase of cheese and baoon factories, butter factories, etc., the home an<i •ireign markets must be looked upon as our future field of operations. The export of cheese is not quite so difficult as that of butter. When cheese is well cured it can bear a great deal more rough handling without jury than butter can. Batter, in all its stages of manufactureand distribution, requires much care to have it presented In an attractive and wholesome form. When it is exported, the exercise of care is uspeoially necessary, . The old fashioned firkins have long been used, but when the butter has to bo sent in these a long distance, say from New Zealand to Britain, the cost of carriage is considerable, and the form of the firkin causes the carriage to be comparatively high on account of tho large amount of waste space caused by the round form. For a long time Mr. T. M. Bryant, of Onehunga, has looked upon this point as a serious obstacle in the way of making a large export of butter from the colony, as the space in a oold chamber is much more valuable than the same amount of space in the ordinary hull of a ship. As a result of his meditations on this subject, he designed a square form of package, which could be put together when tho butter was made, and the cost of earrying " empties " would be thus reduced to a minimum. But one difficulty stood in his way, and that was how to save the butter being tainted or flavoured by the wood of which the boxes was made. Here seemed to be a stumbling block. He tried again and again in a small way, but in every instance, and whatever wood he used, he found that when the butter was packed in it for several months some taste was imparted to tho butter, and the butter presented a less attractive appearance on being scooped out of a firkin than it would have by being packed in boxes, 12 inches square iniido, which could be knocked to pieces, and leave the square block of butter standing on the bottom part. He found in these experiments that a 12 inch cube of butter, firmly pressed, would weigh exactly 561b5., but how to make this box available puzzled him. Ho tried painting the inside of the case, but that would not do. Many other methods were resorted to for dosing the pores of the wood in the inside of the box, but all resulted unsatisfactorily. At last Mr. J. A. Pond of this city was consulted, to see if his chomical knowledge could be of service. Mr. Bryant offerod him half the interest in the patent to be secured, if he succeeded in giving a glaze or polish to the inside of the boxes which would neither impart an unpleasant flavour nor taste to the butter, and which would not become injured by keeping. At first Mr, Pond thought the task he had undertaken would be very easily accomplished, but he found it far more difficult than he had anticipated. However, perseverance with skill and knowledge overcomes most difficulties, and this one formed no exception. A solution was found to accomplish all the conditions required, and, to make the success more oomplete, machinery wag arranged to put the solution on to the inside of the boxes under severe pressure, and with a very great degree of heat. Rollers were designed for passing the boards between, after being planed, and as the upper roller is hollow, it can be heated to any degree desired by jets of gaß and common atmospheric air mixed. The solution is applied under these circumstances,and when the board comes from botwoen the rollers the dressed surface is quite smooth and hard, and the glaze given to it by the solution used is quite hard, and not affected by far stronger chemical agencies than it will ever bo subjected to in conveying butter from New Zealand to Britain or elsewhere. Butter has been spread upon a prepared board and kept for months, and it has remained unaffected. The boards with one side thus prepared will be made into butter boxos by machinery, so that the joints will fit very closo. The butter will be pressed into these boxes under a screw press, so that all butter-milk, air cavities, &c., will be squeezed out, and when the purchaser in London knooks the sides of his case off, ho will have standing before him a twelve-inch cube of butter weighing exactly half-a-hundredweight. The invention, of course, has been secured by letters patent, and stops are now being taken to have these boxes made in quantity. The timber used will be Icahikatea, that having been found to absorb the protecting solution better than kauri, besides being somewhat cheaper. One of tho boxes was sent to Onehunga yesterday afternoon for exhibition there. While measuring 12 inches square inside, the outside measurement will be exactly 14 inches square, and will thus pack without waste space in the cold ohamber of a steamer. We can only wish the enterprising inventors succoas, and feel sure that before long these new boxes will be the only cases in which butter will be conveyed from place to place.