EDITORIAL NOTES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1263, 14 May 1896, Page 4

EDITORIAL NOTES.

FROZEN MEAT TRADE. Mutual jealousies and rivalries amongst those who have charge of the freezing and exporting of frozen meat seem to lie as foolishly prevalent on "the other side" as they are hero. The Australasian of April has the following brief, but significant, reference to the latest and futile attempt to bring about combination and prevent " "hitting " and low prices at tho London end:—

Some weeks ago a conference of frozen meat export companies war held in .Sydney for the purpose of considering a scheme of combination for joint benefit. The object of the proposed union was to so regulate the shipments as to prevent the glutting of the London market, and at tho same time to maintain as nearly as possible an even price ou that marketAfter long discussion, in which the delegates who represented twelve of the thirteen companies in Australia expressed their willingness to carefully consider a draft scheme, the gentlemen who chiefly promoted tee combination reduced their proposals to writing. I nose proposals have been circulated, but t.iey do not commend themselves to tue majority of the companies concerned, .ind consequently the proposed contract is not likely to be sealed.

What is wanted in New Zealand, and we have a shrewd suspicion that it is the sa.ne with the Australians, is that there should ho a combination of sheep-farmers and meat producers with the object of either forcing the companies to mako such arrangements in Loudon as will put an end to the existing and insane system of cut-throat competition in selling the cargoes, or, in the event of such a course being found inadvisable or impossible, of forming one gigantic co-operative combination, which would ship and sell (in its .own shops) all over the United Kingdom, the meat supplied by the shareholders. The frozen meat industry just now is in a perilous position. Something must be •done to improve what is admitted by all to he a most unsatisfactory stato of affairs.

FIRE SERVICE FOR DAIRY FACTORIES. With reference to the above; subject upon which we had an editorial note last week, an old subscriber to and valued correspondent of the At ail, now manager of a dairy factory, writes us as follows : "Thanks, very much, for your practical and valuable notes as to the provision for fire preventive and extinction appliances in connection with dairy factories. It is one of the many excellent and useful articles for which those engaged in the dairy industry have to thank you, and I only hope tho plan suggested by Mr Geilhofer and detailed, in your columns, will be put into'f^•-- at the many factories at which, up to the present, no adequate provision has been made to fight tho Fire Fiend. In my own factory, the insurance on the buildings and plant is much below actual value and a bad fire would be a heavy loss. 1 intend, however, to bring your article under the notice of the directors at the next meeting, and hope to get them to authorise the necessary expenditure. In tho case of factories owned by co-operative companies, the risk run through not having a proper fire prevention equipment is very serious, and 1 hope for their own sakes that the shareholders in these factories, of which there are now so many in the Wellington and Taranaki districts, will act upon your suggestion that Mr Geilhofer's scheme, or some modification of it, should be put into operation. With best wishes for tho Mail and in tho hope that you will continue to give us practical and useful articles.—l am, Ac, &c, where's your scrap book ? Almost every week we get enquiries for recipes of insecticides, kc, and very frequently from regular subscribers to tho Mail who say :—" 1 saw so and bo in your papor some weeks (or months) ago. Would you mind cutting it out, as 1 have lost my copy," or again the request is made that we shall republish tho information previously given. Wo would point out that with tho best wishes in the world to assist our readers it is rather unfair to expect us to search through old files without any guidance to a date, and even when found it frequently happens that the particular issue which contains the information is sold out, so that to send the asked for cutting we should have to cut from our bound files, which we cannot do for anyone. Then again, to reprint recipes or other information is so much undue pressure on valuable space, and unfair to subscribers who either keep the farming pages intact for reference, or paste tho most useful articles into a scrap book. This latter is the best course to adopt. We cannot too strongly advise our country readers to keep scrap books. They can be cheaply and easily made, ami in couise of I time, when well stocked with clippings ; from the Mail and other weeklies they j become most valuable and useful reference ! books. The attention of the subscriber I ; for whose benefit we print (for about the ' tenth time) a recipe for Bordeaux mixture, '; is specially directed to the above remarks. FIND THE IiF.ST BREED AND STICK TO IT. The increasing tendency of American farmers to go in for sheep-breeding has recently been discussed in the American iSliccp-hreeder. A correspondent of that journal, an old hand at sheep-farming, writing from the State of Ohio, makes j some remarks about beginners in the sheep i business which are worthy of attention by ] young men in this Colony who are taking j up land with the intention of making a living by wool-growing and meat-produc-

ing. The Ohio man asks: "Are you a 'give-'em-a-trial' man or a stayer ?" Of the experimenter, the "give-'em-a-trial" man, the man who first goes in for one breed and then another, and is continually chopping and changing about, the shrewd American has but a poor opinion. He puts

the ease in the following very practical and not unamusing way: " Let us suppose a condition that I consider ideal. Your grandfather owned a farm. 110 kept sheep. Ho decided on a breed that was well adapted to the environment, lie learned how to shape his fields, his crops, his yards and buildings to best advantage for sheepkeeping. Then your father took up tho work at tho old stand. He improved the breed; he perfected the buildings; ho learned better methods of management. Now you take the reins in hand. You follow the same general course. How much of certainty there is by this time in your methods and their results. How easy to do the right thing at the right time. ' Well,' you say, 'my grandfather came from Home, and my father did iv/t keep sheep, nevertheless 1 mean to go i/ito tho business.' Very well ; go in. But transpose the thing, that's all. lie the grandfather yourself. Lay the foundation for a permanent sheep-farm to be carried on by your son and grandson." He advocates a greater persistence in sticking to one breed, and concludes his letter with the following remark:—" What a gain it would bo to have even one county like Shropshire, mainly devoted to the most careful breeding of one kind of sheep, or Lincolnshire, or Dorsetshire."

RATIONAL DEHORNING. Even when most carefully and scientifically performing dehorning must always and necessarily be attended with a certain degree of cruelty. It is in high favour with the Americans and we have frequently reprinted articles in the Mail from American papers in which the value of dehorned cattle was strongly and very : properly insisted upon. Hut, as it has I been pointed out by a writer in the Melbourne Lend,:,; tho advantage of having no horned cattle in a dairy herd can be I obtained by the very simple method of j using a Polled Angus bull of a milking j strain; also that all tho advantages that accrue from boef cattle not having horns when travelling, either by rail or on ship board, can bo obtained by crossing with the Polled Angus meat-producing strains. An example furnished by a correspondent of a leading America is quoted by the Leader as proving the marked prepotency influence of a pure breed in its immediate effects. He says :—" In 18SS 1 had a herd of horned cows. J did not want to cut off their horns, but determined to get rid of them in some manner. 1 bred them to a polled bull of a good milking strain, ami to my surprise but one in ten of even the first crop ,4' the calves had hums. Jn IWiJ I had a fine herd of polled heifers, having sold all my horned cattle. These polled heifers, thus produced from horned mothers by a polled bull, never had a horned calf, although all my previous bulla had been from horned mothers. This snows how easj it is Lo In end out the horns. In my experience I find horned cattle require as much again stable room as polls, for I herd all my young cattle in a largo pen, like sheep, until they are ready to drop their first calves. All the older cattle are kept in another shed the same way unless J mil!; them; then for convenience I put them in stalls. They gather at tho feed troughs as thick as they can crowd, none disturbing the others. It is not onefourth tho labour to stable them, since 1 use no chains, stanchions or halters. None are vicious or wild, though some of their horned mothers were, and even if horned cattle are natuvally quiet, tie; fact that they have horns makes them a nuisance in rushing each other about.

HOW A .£SO PRIZE WAS WON. An intercolonial butter-making contest was recently held in New South Wales, when there were no less than fifty-five competitors. Tho winner of the champion prize of £»0 turned up in tho Glenormiston factory, and the full details of tho methods

adopted in manafactuiing the winning sample have now been published by the Melbourne papers. It appears the milkwas separated at a temperature of 85 deg. Fahr. and the cream on leaving the separators was passed over one of Mc"\ eigh s patent coolers, which reduced the temperature to GO deg. It was then pumped into a cream vat in tho maturing room, where a "starter" was used to bring on the acidity to the desired stage, the cream being cooled down in the vat to 50 deg. and being occasionally stirred. Next morning, that is twenty hours after the milk was separated, the cream was run into the churn, which had first been rinsed out. Tho temperature of the cream at this time was still OG deg. Fahr. Van I tassel's butter cooler was added at the rate of :{oz to 1001 b of butter, and Die churn started, being driven at the rate of 38 revolutions pier minute. The butter commenced to come in thirty minutes, and the churn was stopped when the butter was in a granular form about tho size of peas. The buttermilk was then run off and the butter allowed to drain. It was afterwards washed in two waters in the chum, the water coming off clear. The water used was at a temperature of GO deg. Fahr. After washing the butter was permitted to drain in the churn for 30 minutes. At the end of this period it was taken out of the churn and passed over tho butter worker, when it was salted at the rate of 4 per cent, of salt (Iliggins' salt being used), and 1 per cent, of preservitas was added. These ingredients were slightly worked into tho butter; and then, the first stago of the process being completed, it was placed in a trough and passed into the cool room, where it was kept at a temperature of 50 deg. till tho following morning. When removed from]|tho cool room next morning it was re-passed over the butter worker to abstract as much moisture as possible and to obtain the pioper texture in the butter. After this final working the finished articlo was packed in enamelled boxes lined with parchment paper soaked in a solution of preservitas. Tho packed exhibit was removed to the cool room, where it remained until it left for Sydney on 11th February. The outside temperature when tho butter was packed registered 100 deg. Tho exhibits when they

reached Sydney were stored at a temperature not exceeding 2H deg., and the butter was opened fur judging on 2nd April. Til V, FRUITGROWERS' CONFERENCE. The Fruitgrowers' < which has been in many ways a very decided success, closed on Friday last-, the delegates enjoying a picnic to Masterton on the following day. In consequence of this being San Francisco mail week, and the pressure on our time and space being very great, we reserve our comments upon tin- work done at the Conference until next week.