THE DAIRY INDUSTRY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1367, 12 May 1898, Page 4

THE DAIRY INDUSTRY.

AMONG THE DAIRY FARMS AND DAIRY FARMERS OF WELLINGTONS ARAN AKI. No.V.

{Specially written for the New Zealand Mail.)

J The season just closing shows every sign of being quite the best for years. Not only has the price at Home been maintained at high levels right to the end of the season; but the output for the " off months " (principally owing to the falling off in the Australian and Southern supply) has been eagerly competed for. Nearly all the factories in Taranaki have sold their output for April. The prices varied from eightpence halfpenny to a shilling. This very great difference is striking. At the beginning of the month the wily speculator, who discerned the coming shortness of supply, got early "on the warpath," and secured the output of some factories for the price first named. As the month grew older, the prices asked i were gradually raised to the present maximum.

Naturally the farmers are jubilant. One factory after another is announcing -that they are going to pay their supplyers 9£d per pound for the butter fat for April. Will those readers who have the honour of supplying proprietary companies nearer Wellington please make a note of this fact: that while they have been getting 7£d (as a great favour), their fellow dairymen in Taranaki have been getting 9£d, or in other words 25 per cent, more? The first two factories to announce the pleasant fact anentthe 9Jd are the Oaonui and Pihama factories.

ANOTHER NEW FACTORY. Still another new co-operative dairy company is announced. This time at Kaponga. For some two or three seasons past the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company have run a creamery at Kaponga in conjunction with their Mangatoki factory, and the proposed new factory is to take the place of the creamery.

CREAMERY V. FACTORY. A mild little controversy has been going on for a few days on the question of creamery or factory. At the former I may explain the cream is merely skimmed from the milk and afterwards removed to a factory for manufacture into butter. The Stratford shareholders at their annual meeting a few days ago discussed the ajlvisableness of erecting creameries in connection with their factory. One of the opponents of the scheme (a shareholder named Harre) opposed the proposal on the ground that a better article could be made if all the milk were delivered at one centre and no cream-carting had to be done. An advocate of the proposed plan instanced Midhurst Factory as an example of a factory working with attached creameries; and this reference caused Mr Harre to remark that "the output at Midhurst was not so good as before they went in' so extensively for creameries." For his , authority he gave Mr Newton King, the Leviathan butter buyer of the province. A champion for Midhurst at once appeared in Mr Joe Harkness, ex-M.H.E., who is now secretary for the Midhurst company. Mr Joo was very indignant. He did not bet, " but if, etc., he would I give £XO to any charity." Mr Harre, however, is perfectly right in his contention I that a factory is better off if it can do I without creameries. The arrangements for controlling the temperature of cream at creameries are invariably conspicuous by their absence; and the two or three hours' exposure to the heat and the sun while on the way to the factory always militates against a first-class article being made from a creamery's cream.

THE "FISHY" FLAVOUR.

" This puts me in mind of a story," as Abe Lincoln used to say. A factory was being built in the back blocks and the Government plans were applied for, and suppliei. Later on a professional architect was called in, and he tried in vain to find out who was the budding architect who had designed the Government plans; but the authorship remained shrouded in mystery, until the plans were finally identified as the work of a modest cheese-

maker, who had repeatedly disclaimed all knowledge of them. This much modesty is quite refreshing now-a-days. It is owing to undue modesty or crass ignorance that all references to the horrible flavour known as " fishy " is quietly glossed over, some experts going as far as to say they do not know what the flavour is. For their information, I may say it is the results of an obnoxious fermentation caused by keeping cream- at an excessive temperature for several hours, and it is most likely to be developed in butter made from carted or creamery cream.

HOME SEPARATION. If the Wellington Fresh Food and Ice Coy. is brought to a successful issue; pretty nearly every farmer in the Wellington province will require to give the question of home separation his earnest consideration. For the benefit of those who may be interested I called a few days ago on Mr Jas. Weir, who was for some time chairman of the Stratford factory ; and who for some time had adopted the " home separation " plan. Much to my surprise Mr Weir's verdict was altogether in favour of bringing the separator to the milk; in preference to taking the milk miles to the separator. As fax as he was concerned the factory had been a mistake, for he had never made so much out of his dairy since he started running to it. His verdict, therefore, was for " home separation."

THE WEATHER. Never has Taranaki had such a lovely autumn as the present. For several weeks we have had the mildest, pleasantest weather possible. Warm sunny days, without unduly cold nights, have been the regular thing for tho past six weeks. Consequently the growth of grass is " prodigious," and the factory supplies are keeping up well; so for another few weeks longer dairymen will be able to take the fullest advantage of the high prices ruling.