MESSRS A. AND T. BURT'S FACTORY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 4163, 22 June 1875, Page 3

MESSRS A. AND T. BURT'S FACTORY.

After some months of active exertion, a Messrs A. and T. Burt have now about got I their copper and brass works and lead pipe factory, in Cumberland street, into complete working order. The premises are those that were once occupied by Messrs Sparrow and Co., lmt the buildings bave been greatly enlarged. The buildings have a frontage of 06ft. to Cumberland street, and extend back —a portion to a depth of 90ft., and the remainder ISOft. There is abundance of yard space, the firm's ground extending from street to street, being a distance of 330 ft. The front portion of the building is of brick, and two storeys high, and the rear is of iron. The buildings are sub-divided as follows : —Au office and private ofiice ; a store-room, from which the men are supplied with material ; a pattern shop; the pattern store-room —a large room in which the patterns that have accumulated for years are stowed away, according to their classitisation, on shelves ; the hydranl:c engineering department, where water engines, pumps, aud other hydraulic apparatus are made; coppersmiths' and blacksmiths' shops; plumbers' and tin smiths' shops ; brass moulding shops ; boiler house, in which there is a large boiler that supplies steam to three engines and drives the air fans of the forges ; and the lead pipe works. There is a chimney stack SOft. high. The several departments before mentioned we have alicady described in a previous notice of Messrs Burt's business when formerly carried on in their Princes street premises. It might, however, be mentioned that, since we last referred to their works, various important additions have been made to the machinery. Among these may be noticed a copper cutting engine, which cuts copper to any length and shape ; a machine for making screws on the ends of piping, and which does more work in five minutes than could be formerly dove in two hours, and enable i odd lengths and short pieces of piping to be pit to use; three screw cutting lathes ; and a brass finishing shaping mtchine, which effects a great saving of labour in the way of bringing brass work to a smooth surface, and does away with filing. In the new premises there is plenty of room, which was not the case in the old shop, which the bu-iness had outgrown. This is not only a great advantage to the firm, but a comfort to the hands employed. Since Messrs Burt commenced business in their new factory they have added to their business a branch of industry new to this Colony—that of lead pipe making—and to this department we wili now r<-fer. The lead pipe making machinery is thst which is known as " Weem's hydraulic machine," and can be used for making solid lead, lead and tin composition pipes, block tin tub's, lead rods, and sheet lead of a narrow width. The machine consists of a hydraulic cylinder and ram. aud a portable vessel called a container. There is a die wliich forms the outside of the pipe, sn-1 the inside is formed by a mandril or core. This core is fixed upright in the centre of the l^ad container. The container is tilled with molten lead, which is allowed to cool. On the hydraulic macMnery being set in motion, the container is forced upwards against the ram and die. The surface of the metal in the container is pressed agaiust the face of the ram and die, and the metal, having no other means of escape, is forced out through the opening between the core - and die, coining out in the shape of a con--1 tiuuous and finished pipe until all the metal i in the container is exhiusted. There is a speedy return motion, by which the hydraulic machinery is lowered, whereupon the a content? of another container can be put f through the process described. The machine - can be worked at the rate of five or six . changes an hour. The hydraulic machinery \ is worked by three powerful steam pumps, which are tixed in one frame. The whole of 1 the machinery is of the most substantial a character—for instance, the bottom casting :i of the hydraulic machinery weighs five tons. :l To show the strength required, it may be I mentioned that when the hydraulic machie nery is at work pressing the lead into the g form of piping, a pressure of from 30 cwt. to a two tons to the square inch is often indicated c by the gauge, and the apparatus is capable c of working up to a pressure of five tons to c the square inch. This department of the g Factory is under the charge of an exq perienced foreman, specially brought out c from Britain by Messrs Burt. It is the first t lead pipe-making machinery erected in New n Zealand, and the firm maintains that it is of -. the most improved make, and superior to it any on this side of the Line. Be this as it h may, one fact is indisputable—that is, that b, the works are the beginning of a new indus:e try here, and a means of using up old lead on II the spot, instead of having it exported from :d the Colony to help to keep industry active te elsewhere. Those who start a new enter- ; prise always deserve well of a Colony, and le we hope that Messrs Burt will have reason -y to be gratified with their .venture.

SHEEP FARMIKaiN*a MEW ' --*-" —=■ • • i j. i, We have received sc fetal }fi(JK r< . f '" Floor /mr s'llljscriberSj asking far' ?!?K m.itioi* -1 bout tVew MexkiOj arid fhe ji?!n \, held out for sheep farming.- '.The /ofi"*?. '" letter fioux Mr .Htnry iioddifig,- of OiiiV.9*ron; JS^w -j.il. xieff,- txifi addressed fc' tfcV" ( , L-ndon Timvi, will jui-oLabiy supply' the-ii?'. quired infurinti Yon. Ti.e writer sajs— \ '• Reeling dr. t at lie present time a ic£t6?''. from a person «ictive>y cng.iged in sheepfarming in New JVltxicty may be ueloome io some of your num^ious ?eaders, I take the libeiiy of sending ywu a shvirt one; and giving you my experience upou 3sfe- subject. For many years I was engaged in the sheep busicess ih Australia, but, irom the utter hopelessness of doing any good there without ihe very large amount of captSal- requisite, lome five yeais ago I turned ray steps towards Colorado, and eventually sattled dcm;u in tbe northern part of New Mexico, adja- ' «ent to tlie boundary of that territsry, which, :ss a shsep or cattie country, is the finest I iave seen in the United States. _?br some ;18 montTra 1. and my partner, Mr Francis glutton, travelled over Colorado asdl New Mexico with an eye to finding a suitable jjace to nialfce-our home, and at length we on 3fctftling in the vicinity cf itke Dry Cimarron Kiver, and were al?sady 1 j abont to build, when the plain Indians—tbe ; Comanches andl Che.yennes -came ia, meek- | ing a bad i-aid, and taking many scalps acid t horses, but fortunately missing ours. As ivethen felt setting in this direction, imntdiatelyon the Indian trail, would be a | r-sky business, we Surned our thoughts again ' towards this Settlements, com ng some 30 , miles further in, and here, on the Rttaplen, 'close to the Canadian River, we made our Lome. We have some 0,000 sheep, bred • from the original M< xican ewc-s by Ckitswold runs ; at the present time having iv our flock the fourth cross, which shows nearly every characteristic of the Cotswold, having iacreased largely in frame and weight, and cutting three times as much wool as the ewes Irom which they came, the wool being of a much more maiketable quality, and bringing from td to od more per lb than unimproved Mexican wrols. " Tlie great quest on is, what cross to use ? Having bought our sheep when tiny were already showing so much Cotswold that we hit it would be extremely injudicious to try a fresh cross, we are using Cotswolds still, aad I have yet to see as line a herd of sheep or one that cuts so much wool in New Mexico, though other men who have tried | nuriuos are doing very well, and one would expect that cross to lead more directly to tbe old high standard. But Mr Thomas Bogge, who for many 5-ears has been the largest sheep farmer in Colorado, has tried both breeds, and has now gone back to the Cotswold cross agaia. The mode of herding here, even that puisued iiy English and Americans, is different to any iv use in other countries, owing to the strange circumstances under which we are placed. In the winter mouths, we still travel, the sheep then requiring very little water, and so rendering long journeys unnecessary; and, from the immense area of unfed grassy lands lying waiting to be used, th s plan ' answers very well, and gives the grass at home a good chauce to spring and get well up for summer use. A herd gi nerally consists of about 2000 sheep, and fur Ibis a man and a boy, whose collective wages amount to about £6 per calendar month, are quite sufficient—the man doing the night work and the boy the day. Tlieir outfit consists of a donkey, whereon to pack provisions, a kettle, an axe, and a frying-pan, which are ths donkey's load ; while the men carry their single blanket upon their shoulders, and so go out into the coldest weather and stay in it without the slightest shelter through the weary winter, taking care always to be in good pasture, aud, if possible, near to abundant firewood. " Where a man has several herds, as we have, a major dl.no is appointed, who goes ahead and seeks out a course and camping places, and superintends things generally ; the herders being subject to his orders, and he being responsible for all, for which he gets a horse to ride and a trifle better pay. Of course, however, it is necessary for the owner, be his herders ever so good, to be with them as often .is ho con, and to rentier his intercourse with them possible he must possess some knowledge of the Spanish tongue, which is almost a requisite in a sheep farmer, and once among Mixicans easily picked up. The shearers are Mexicans, the herdsrs Mexicans, and all the men you are liable to meet to make inquiries about tbe whereabouts of your tlock Mexicans too, so that it is difficult almost not to learn in a few months. The food given to herders cons's's of seconds flour, costing this year about 12s per sack of 1001b ; cornmeal, costingabout the same ; and cofft eperhaps 14d a pound. Of these they have as much as they can use, and to meat they help themselves, always being required to save the skins of all sheep they kill. At shearing time, which generally occurs about the end of April or the Ist of May, the sheep are brought in, and the ccst I of shearing is about 12s per 100, the men being found in food, and shearing from 60 to SO sheep a day, according to the different class of sheep ; but shearing in New Mexico is a rough business, despite the great number of sbeep depasturing therein, for the men as yet caunot be induced to take any interest in their work, choosing rather to race for who can get through the most, and butchering the sheep accordingly, Even in this, however, they have made a march, for when, five years ago, I came to Colorado I saw some men cutting the wool off a flock of sheep with butchers' knives, and then it was considered in that part the correct thing so to do. The price of sheep, genuine Mexicans, is, lor the ewes, 2dols. — say Ss 4d; for wethers, (is 4d. For improved herds it is impossible to give quotations, they being valued according to their grade, and not very often in the mai ket. " That sheep-farming pays —- and pays largely—even before, the sheep are improved, can easily be seen by travelling through New Mexico, where all the rich men, except the storekeepers, are sheepim n. That it pays with improved breeds can be still more easily proved by tbe fact that the sheep are healthy, vrolific, and cost nothing for their keep. The last lambing throughout the territory yielded an iucrease of more than SO per cent., and as our own tl->ck—the only one I can be sure of for an instance—cut on the average 51b of wool per head, and this wool realised 2Sc. per lb—say 14d—after paying all expenses, that makes the average os lOd a head in English money, saying nothing of the increase in extra _ quality of the sheep." Strasobrs paying a -isit io uuuemn are often at a ' loss to know which is the .best establishment to visit for the purchase of drapery and clothing. Herbert, Haynes, and Co. offer special advantages to the public \ that can be met with nowhere else in tiie city. They ' keep at all times the largest and best assorted stock of every class of goods, imported direct from the leading - manufacturers and warehousemen at home, which, , being bought entirely upon cash terms, they are '. enabled to offer goods of such sterling- value as cannot . be equalled by any other house in the trade. Every ) article in stock is marked at a fixed price for reidy _, money, frcm which no abatement is ever made, so that the most inexperienced buy their goods at the * same price as the best judges. Their terms are—net I cash, without discount or 'reduction of any kind. A t fuller description o their stock will be found in an advertisement in the first ua<re of this wauer.—f Advt. : Holloway's Pills.—Nervous Debility.—Xo pan of 1 the human machine requires more watching than the B nervous system, upon which health and life itself depend. These Pills are the best regulators and , strcngtheners of the nerves, and tlie safest general purifyers. Nausea, headache, gid.Hr.e^s, numbness, s and mental apathy yield to tliem". They dispatch in a summary manner those distressing dyspeptic symptoms, stomachic pains, fulness at the pit, ef the stomach, abdominal distension, and regulate alike t capricious appetites and confined bowels—the come nionly accompanying si^jiis of defective or deranged x nervous power. Holloway's Pills are particularly recommended to persons of studious and sedentary J habit?, who gradually sink into a venous and debili- !, tated state, unless some such restorative be occasion,f ally taken.