AN EXPERT ON DAIRY FACTORIES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1095, 24 February 1893, Page 7

AN EXPERT ON DAIRY FACTORIES.

Mr G. S. Jakins, proprietor of the Belfast Dairy Factory, gave his opinion the other day to a representative of an Oamaru paper on butter factories. In the course of his remarks, Mr Jakins stated that he uses at his factory a do Lavel separator and the new patent Streamlet churn, which is a non-con-cussion churn. ‘I don’t think,’continued he, ‘ that creameries will ever be a success in New Zealand. In the first place there is no means of testing | the value of the cream, and in the second they require an expert to work them. The man who can work a creamery can just as easily run a small factory with the help of a boy. You can’t work a creamery under a man and a boy, and yet with two men and a boy I run a small factory, which can turn out two tons of butter a week. In Australia the factories have adopted the principle of taking the cream and making a separate churning for every creamery. The butter is tbea purchased ou itß merits, the creamery paying tho farmers, and the factory charging |d per lb for churning and £d for commission. My idea is to have a small independent factory in each district, instead of creameries here aud

there. Under this plan the cream is not knocked about nearly so much, aud experience has shown that, in Australia at any rate, the small factories are very much better properties than the large ones, and pay much better.’

‘What about the expense of running a small factory ?’ queried our representative.

‘Well, you would, perhaps, notice that Mr Crawford, the Government expert, at Timaru the other day, at a mteting called to establish a cooperative factory, estimated the expenses of a factory and creameries to turn out four tone a week at £4O a week. My factory, with a capacity of two tons a week, costs about £7 to run, aud for another £2 I could turn out four tons a week, as it would cost very little more to run three separators than one. The cost of putting up a small factory is very little more thau that of erecting a creamery.’ ‘ Aud about what price should the farmers get for their milk ?’ ‘ Well, I have been paving 3£d a gallon from the beginning of the season, and since February 7th jt has been up to 3£d, the farmers, of course, getting the skim milk. I see Mr Crawford, at Timaru, proposed to pay only 3d, but I don’t think that is a fair price.’ ‘ Then your advice is not to build big creameries ?’

‘ Exactly. If individual proprietors will start small factories it will be better for all concerned. They get their cream in a better condition and can depend upon its differing very little in quality, as it will always be drawn from one source. When there is a central factory and the cream has to be carted from the different creameries it arrives in all sorts of conditions—frothed by a nor’-wester or curdled by a thunderstorm.