THE BUTTER DISCUSSION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9144, 28 August 1888, Page 6

THE BUTTER DISCUSSION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—On my return to Auckland I find that your columns have been enlivened by a discussion on inferior butter making. As several of your correspondents have taken liberties with the names of the Freezing Company and the New Zealand Dairy Association with which I am connected, I think you will pardon me for taking part in the controversy. Mr. Hewin, when dealing with the previous contribution signed "Grumbler," is, as "Grumbler" himself has informed him, quite in the wrong in supposing that the letter owed its origin to interest in our association. A moment's consideration should have prevented him from making such a blunder. I cannot guess who the writer may be ; but I have met his prototype among grocers, who, I happen to know, have, of all people, the most excuse for saying hard things about careless dairy work. This consideration and the readiness shown by Mr. Hewin in coming to the needless defence of the farmer, does but evidence the chivalry of his character. "Grumbler " wad, of course in the wrong in implying that none of our farmers make good butter. I myself know at least a dozen private dairies which make excellent butter ; butter equal, if not superior, to the Freezing Company's late manufacture, or any other factory make which I have yet heard of. As this is a fact, I know no reason why it may not be acknowledged. With cool good weather as at present, good butter should be more readily met with than it is. That even the most careful and most skilled are at a disadvantage when the weather is hot and close, is apparent; and farmers, who certainly do not deserve " Grumbler's" censure, do at such times, to their own disgust, produce butter of the character which has excited his ire. During summer weather the appliances of the Dairy Association will enable them to almost infinitely surpass the best efforts of the private dairy. That this was so, even during the splendid butter making season just passed, was proven by the sale of the factory-made butter at a Id and 2d a lb advance upon the rates for best ordinary, which " statement," as Mr. Hewin says, "is unchallengeable." By-the-bye, how anyone writing on behalf of the farmers could make a grievance of this fact, is not easily understood. It certainly did not look like unfair competition, or an attempt to run the private dairyman out of the market; nor do intelligent farmers so misunderstand it. Had the case been reversed, and had the settler been systematically undersold, there would be reason in Mr. Hewin's plaint. The tendency of the Freezing Company's late efforts were, first, to save from absolute waste some hundreds of tons of valuable dairy produce, and next to equalise the value of butter the year through. No one lost by this. Everybody was benefited by it. As this was done at a pecuniary loss, and for a somewhat ungrateful people, and as the department is now closed, it may be recorded as one of the good deeds done by the Freezing Company. The Dairy Association will take Mr. Hewin's suggestion, or improvement, of manufacture to heart. While I am ready to admit that there was room for improvement, I am of opinion that the butter department's work was anything but a disgraceful failure. Everything must have a beginning. It will now be the duty of the management of the Dairy Association to profit by the mistakes, and to avoid the errors of the late business, and to bring their manufacture to the pitch of perfection which everybody desires. " Grumbler's" disposal of unsuccessful dairy folk as gum-diggers and funguspickers, is certainly severe. It is not likely that he really means what he says. If he does, I cannot sympathise with him. Indeed, Mr. Editor, I believe that with the assistance of the Association to which I have the honour to belong, the same farmer pro-,

duce will eventually compete successfully in the home marked with the Danish and Normandy butter, which "Grumbler" ironically suggests should be imported here. Apologising for the space occupied. —I am, etc. WT Spragg, Manager New Zealand Dairy Association.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—ln a recent number of the Herald appears a letter written by " Grumbler (who, by-the-bye, must be suffering from a bad attack of dyspepsia, brought on by eating too heartily of Barnett s celebrated breakfast bacon),' and saying the demise of the Freezing Company's butter department is nothing short ox a public calamity ; that the butter supplied by our so-called dairy farmer is retailed at Is 6d per lb., or 20 per cent, more than the Freezing Company charged. He then goes on to say that the butter is almost uneatable, rank in smell, etc. Well, we know there are shiftless people in every trade, and there are many people who have lost situations where they were paid high salaries, turn to farming, and, as a natural consequence, if they had no training, things are done in a poor shiftless fashion, and perhaps the butter not thoroughly worked, as " Grumbler" complains of; but is that any reason why those who have been trained and spent a lifetime at dairying, and who make first-class butter, to be put down as a shiftless and miserably incapable crowd ? But surely "Grumbler" must be writing in irony when he thinks it would be a profitable speculation to import Danish or Normandy butter, say in the summer months, for instance, when butter is so cheap, and when New Zealand already in the course of the year manufactures more butter than she can consume. I should say from the tone of Grumbler's" letter, that he was one of the Freezing Company's servants, and having had a nigh salary, now feels in the dumps when he is thrown out of employment. Why not take to fungus picking himself ? which he thinks would be so congenial and suitable an occupation for our dairy farmers, though I am afraid he would have to go far afield into the backwoods to make it pay. If the New Zealand Freezing Company's butter was such a really good article, why did it not bring a higher price in the London market ? I think we dairymaids ought to try if we could not win where the company failed in opening a market for our butter in the London market. I propose that " Grumbler" goes farming, and supplies a first-class article at from 20 to 50 per cent lower than our so-called dairy farmers, as by so doing he would be conferring a great boon on the community at large.—l am, fee., Wairoa South, Aug. 24. A Dairymaid. I [to the editor.] I Sir, —Your correspondent "Grumbler," in making his false charges against buttermakers, nas evidently been ashamed or afraid to use his own name, and he has been very happy in the choice of a nom dt plume, but it is easy to form an opinion of what kind of a man " Grumbler " must be. There can be little manliness in a person who can make such false accusations against a large body of hard-working settlers, and hide himself by a nom dt plume. " Grumbler " is evidently a person who has not been able to do any good for himself or anybody else, and, to ease his mind, has an all-round dig at dairy farmers, but such slander will fall like water on a duck's back, coming from such an individual. If " Grumbler ' thinks it would be such a profitable speculation to import butter, why does he not try it? and I am sure that would enable him to grumble for the rest of his life, and perhaps he would be glad then to go fungus-picking as well as the farmers. I shall be glad to lay him on to a good beat if ha is willing to work at it, but I think to do nothing and grumble is more in his line. If " Grumbler " is willing to do business, let him send me a large order for good butter, at anything like the price he names, and I will supply it from our dairy farmers, who are able and willing to produce tons of it, and I will guarantee the quality.— am. etc., H. Crispe. Mauku.