FANCY BUTTER.

Otago Witness, Issue 956, 16 May 1889, Page 6

FANCY BUTTER.

By Fred W, Tucker,,, w . " , In continuation of t my (former remarks on the ; prospects of a Home market for colonial butter, I have now a few words to say on fanoy butters, j LOMBABDY OR ITALIAN 1 competes with Irish for the second place, and is coming more to the front year by year. Italy has long been famous for its basket-making and straw-plaiting, and she not only exports her famed "Gorgonzola" cheese in baskets, but also her butter, which is first wrapped in fine uinen cloths and then packed in baskets, each 'containing either 141b •or 281b net. Large herds of cattle are driven, down from the Alps to escape the rigour of the winter and luxuriate in the rich pastures pf Umbria ajid all North Italy. It is during these months, from about October jbo March,' that they ' make their butter and cheese, the summer being too hot ; and their feeason therefore corresponds with ours. For generations past they have worked on the associated dairy system. Where there are a number of small farms they have erected factories, and where one farm is surrounded by small ones they collect the milk to one oentre, so that one set of utensils will suffice, and a greater yisld is thus obtained. NORMANDY AND BBITTANT BUTTER is chiefly exported in kegs holding about 701b, crocks holding 501b, and boxes, containing one dozen 21b rolls, each, roll wrapped in cloth. The boxes are cube shaped, and the wood is very little thicker than that of starch boxes; tacked together with small wire nails. This last package commends itself greatly to my mind. It is so clean and handy, and the butter is ready to be passed over the counter to the customer 1 without waste, and the time otherwise occupied in weighing is saved; Butter does not look well scooped out of boxes piecemeal, as I have noticed it done there from Pond's patents. I believe the boxes are meant to be taken asunder and the butter left standing on the bottom; this would take the fancy of the 'customer better than the other way. Brown is not a good basis for butter, but green sets it off better than any other colour. The Norman farms are all small, and like the system of collecting eggs in vogue there, as well as practised by the Irish hucksters, the butter is marked, classed, and despatched in packages as above. It requires to be consumed quickly, and is very rarely salted for keeping purposes ; in fact, it is shipped away , to Paris or England immediately, and the stock never accumulate*. DOESBT BUTTBR is moulded into rolls by a very rumple contrivance, and is packed like the Normandy, but the boxes are a trifle more substantial, with a hinged lid so as to be returnable. The name, like the Danish, is pirated in London, and the name sells the butter. This is both, an honour and an injustice to the shire. There it is no secret in making their butter. The cows are carefully treated and well fed, the dairymaids have the skill which is poly acquired by experience, ana.

strict attention is paid to cleanliness; and ' details. '■''"> l': " ''■ '"•'' I have called these fancy butters because i the methods of packing, &c, will only be useful to New Zealand for its own consumption, which at present is not very large. Dairy p'rod-atfe intended for a market at the other side df tHo world must be different from that which is to. be consumed right here, '; Like'fruit, it must' be consumed .near iti origin to'be judged at its best; but an" article with inclination to slow 'changing would take a better price on being landed. ' . I think that those farmers ,who cannot see their way to send in .their butter to town in prints (or pats) may take a few hints' from the' 1 above lines by hearing what others do to make thejr, sales attractive. " ' * Many yeara a, go, in th&-pity"pf Chester, the farmery' wives'used to trot ia on Saturdays to sell iheir produce in the rows and thoroughfares i their pats of- butter lajr in their baskets on > gree^'leaves. K %The i rff were inspectors whose duty it was to weigh some of these pats now and again, /»ro bpno piiblico) t those tha,t did not turn the scale being confiscated to the benefit of the hospital. One old woman, seeing the attention of these men turned toward her, and fearing the consequences, adroitly slipped half-crowns, into her topmost pats. But, alas \ even then they were short, and in spite of her entreaties they were carried off. She was .well quizzed when the attempted fraud was discovered. AN EiPLANATION. It has been pointed out to me that in my previous letter—the only place where I volunteer my own opinion—that is, under the heading Canadian 1 batter, I advocate the farmers erecting cheese factories and making butter at home j and am asked if such is my opinion. I did not intend *co give any advice either way, and am a little sorry I wrote the words. I showed ttiat the Danes, towhom butter is of the first importance, obtain the highest price, and the extract from my friend's letter immediately following shows that the Canadians, who believe in cheese, and only make butter for their own consumption, and when cheese is abnormally low, are being pushed out of the market by Irish and Italian butter, where creameries are growing in favour. The best Cork butter has always emanated from farms whera there are from 60 t0.70 cows in one dairy. Now I add, that if, as " One Who Believes, &c," asserted in your issue a ■ fortnight ago, " The New Zealand farmers are not in a position to erect, or to support; and work butter factories which are erected for their benefit," let them proclaim themselves to the world as cheese-makers, which does not require such an outlay at first. It is a well-known fact that it does not require such a rich, old pasturage, to make first-class butter as to make prime cheese, and the physical features and humid climate of this country proclaim IN FAVOUR OF BUTTER. - Again, there are factories already started here where they make both butter and cheese, This is advisable where the milk is very rich. This summer I have beeu making cheese for Australia from milk, showing about 3 per cent, of cream, which realised a good price, and in a factory a littte farther south they leave in about 8 per cent.; the surplus cream, which might otherwise go to the whey-vats, being made into butter; and in the future it will be a question whether, without robbing the cheese, enough 'butter can be made to pay for the extra labour and machinery, together with the winter's milk; also, if the milk is clean skimmed, which would pay best —fat pigs or lean cheese? As 1 said before, there is very little local demand, and after the cheese factories close there will always be a quantity of unkeepable butter to swamp the market year by year, and the preeent time is an illustration. In December, when there was plenty of milk, butter was worth la per lb and more; now, when there kso little that most of the factories are forced to close, I see plenty in Dunedin 'offered at 6d!':'This your 1 readers will no doubt assert " is because there is no Australian demand," and " "yhat it is too late |to ship' Home." ' Certainly ; and so ife wijl.be next year and the year after. If the factories had been kept rapping for three,months,longer as in past years'there would have'just about enough butter made to supply the demand here through the winter, and so far as I can tell, those who supplied the factories would not have lost anything, for they would not only have(l<|ft' the course clear for their neighbours' but have profited in this way: firstly, it would have paid them better to receive from 3d to 4d'per'gallon for their milk at the factories than, after Ihe of making butter, only to receive 8d for it, which I believe is now about the price; atid, secondly, they would have received a better dividend, in all probability. Butter made about now, on the factory system, by competent and experienced manufacturers, would keep through the winter and be ready to be placed on the Home market ia the beginning of October, when Danish would be getting scarce and high prices be the order of the day. X think thiß country is SADLY IN WANT OF DAIET INSTRUCTORS. . Nearly everybody has a different opinion to offer, and no one seems to know what is best. Your professor seems to me to be a loiig (!) long (!!) time coming out, for your Agent-gene-ral's advertisement appeared in the Field about twelve months ago. The last notice we gleaned from your columns was to the effect that "he did not think New Zealand could make cheese equal to the .Cheddar "—" — Cheddar, bo noted for capital C's, -Cliffs and caverns and Cheddar cheese. Cheddar cheese is ia its decline, the make of the finest being in very limited hands, but it has given its name and system to Canada, who can compete and sometimes out-Turner Turner. May I inquire how he knows what the country can do? If reports I hear are true, "after partly skimming the milk we can make lib of cheese ont of 81b of milk." What would Americans or Australians say if they could even thresh only 40 bushels of to the acre. The longer he delays the more money will be squandered in useless machinery. Everywhere there is a recklessness visible. In the Taieri Plains there e!fe gang ploughs, expensive harrows, ■ &c, rußt- • ing mi the fields;) thrown aside for something new, like children's toys, while some of the land ia mortgaged up to £20 per acre.