BUTTER AND CHEESE.

Otago Witness, Issue 1584, 1 April 1882, Page 7

BUTTER AND CHEESE.

HOW ADULTERATION IS INJURING THE EXPORTS

01? THESE ARTICLES FROM AMERICA.

The immense falling off in the export trade of butter and cheese is attracting a great deal of interest throught the country. That this decrease is largely due to the fact of adulterations in tho manufacture, and because oleomargarine and lard cheese have been disposed of to an enormous extent by shippers to Great Britain and the Continent as genuine butter and milk cheese, is unquestionably true. Dealers in this city have assigned various reasons for the decline in tho export of these, articles. They that tho season in Europe this year has been a wet one and an excellent one for pasturage, and that there foro the demand for butter and cheese from this country was not so great as it might havo been had the season there been somewhat somewhat similar to tho one experienced here by dairymen. Tho great drought, they also say, was a set-back to the manufacture of butter and cheese in the United States, and the prices are now too high. While these reasons and many others of a like nature are, advanced by the dealers, yet, with scarcely any exceptions, they acknowledge that the shipment of oleomargarine and lard cheese has had much to do with diminishing the export trado in real butter and cheese; and, while this state of things is deplored by the manufacturers of both tho genuino "'and adulterated 'articles, none are ( willing to bear the blame for it. The qlepmargarine , and, lard cheese-makers declare /that whatjfhpy manufacture is pure and heplthyl T. h°s ipsist j that it is properly branded and sold fpr',wjhat it .; is, and-that it is never offered by them upder any other (than ,its, real. name. ' They frankly | admit, however, that' when these' articlesleaW ! their factories the brands are',' remoyed 'by uh'-' scrupulous dealers, and that ' oleomargarine then becomes butter in the foreign market} and lard cheese becomes milk oheese. r ',., '.{.,, .Protests against the frauds' perpetrated in ,the cheese and butter markets have.' becpnje as common >s, the ah 1 , ancj ( as, harmless as 1 the, bleating calf Now and then' some ship i gej:,jw I ho\ has laid his plans to defraud the foreign market, 'finds himself stranded with a large amount of leaking, lard cheese,, and oleomargarine* turned to tallow on .his hands, and, then re^ ,nounces the business for, a/.tinie. 'In brderjth'at 1 , ijh'e general reader .may 'fully 'understand the extent of the falling off in. the .export "tra^de a a few figures may be giyen. , During" last Jyear the .average" export of cheese was something, over 2,000,000 pounds a 'week. ',' The average . this year, is scarcely over IJOQO,OOO pounds a ( week. „The exports of' butter last year,avei|aged' about 450,000 or 500,000 pounds a. week, vhile., this year the average does', not' reach' 200,000 pounds a week. , A large "percentage '<p| the article exported is, in fact, oleomargarine, 5 but it is cleared as butter.- The export trade in oleomargarine, cleared under its lawful name,' is also less than that of last year, but a; vast quantity of the stuff cleared as oleomargarine" is not in the shape of imitation butter, but is in oil. Oleomargarine is used by butter manufacturers in Germany and Holland _ and in other countries. One-quarter of the. oil is^used, with three-quarters of butter to form an article which is there sold at good prices, aiid which is very deceptive in appearance. For the week ending November 24th 1880, 'the' exports in butter were 824,967 pounds ;' in, cheese, 2,094,577 jin oleomargarine, 445,780. For the week ending November 23rd of this year, the exports in butter were 248,630 ; in cheese, 1,234,760 ;in oleomargarine, 208,530. To, Hotterdam, 270,554. pounds of oleomargarine (mostly oleomargarine oil) was shipped in the week ending October 27th 1880. To tho same place only 135,000 were sent for the week ending November 23rd of this year.— New York Times. , i , ,