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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 4, Issue 9 (January 1, 1930)

The Land of Butterfat

The Land of Butterfat.

The men of commerce did not dally long in Paeroa: they moved on that Friday afternoon up the Waihou Valley to Waitoa and Te Aroha. At Waitoa they inspected the great factory of the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Co., where butter, dried-milk and condensed-milk are produced on a very large scale. From the roof of the factory building (three storeys high) the visitors obtained a grand view of the splendid rich country spread around.

There were some cordial speeches at afternoon tea in the Y.M.C.A. building which stands in the centre of the neat factory settlement. The Chairman was Mr. F. W. Walters, who was described by one of the speakers as “the biggest dairy farmer in New Zealand”; his milking herds numbered just on a thousand cows. Mr. P. H. Saxon, in endorsing the Chairman's welcome to the visitors, spoke of the importance of making known the country districts and of settling the unimproved lands.

Mr. F. J. Strange, an old resident of Te Aroha, spoke of the time fifty years ago, when the total dairying output of the Valley consisted of two barrels of salted butter shipped from the Thames by the weekly steamer. Now the combined districts of the Waihou Valley sent out dairy produce to the value of £2,000,000 per annum.

Sunday, 17th November, was spent at Te Aroha. Most of the visitors went to the Spa in the morning and many tried and enjoyed the famous warm baths. In the early afternoon there were visits to the surrounding country and to large dairy farms. The farms selected for a look-around were those of Mr. F. W. Walters, at Waitoa, Mr. Fred Strange, at Mangaiti, and Mr. J. Mackay, at Elstow. The visitors were entertained by members of the page 13 family to afternoon tea, and thanks were warmly expressed for the opportunity which had thus been afforded of seeing some of the best dairy farms in New Zealand. “When the sheltered plains between Hauraki Gulf and Matamata are divided into farms of 50 acres and those farms are under intense cultivation,” said an expert among the visitors, “the district will produce as much butter-fat as is now produced by the whole of New Zealand.”