Dairy Industry in New Zealand.

Report by Professor James Long.

I have the honour to enclose my report upon the relation of the dairy-produce of New Zealand to the English market. I have endeavoured to point out how it can be more economically made, more perfectly shipped, and more profitably sold in this country. The colonial farmer has to contend against great difficulties, the chief of which are the great length of the time of transit and the consequent risk of deterioration in the quality of the butter and cheese shipped, and Continental, American, and Canadian competition. The difficulties of successful shipment, I believe, will be ultimately overcome, so that New Zealand butter may be landed in London as fine in flavour as the best products of France and Denmark; but the rivalry of these two countries will continue to prevent the receipt of very high prices. The New Zealand climate and herbage, however, render the colony a most formidable antagonist, inasmuch as butter can be produced not only cheaper in the summer but also cheaper in the winter than in a European country. This fact is of great importance, for it tends to place the colonial fewer upon a very close level with the French and Danish farmers as a producer for the English market. With regard to the question of manufacture, I believe it will be found that there is much yet to be learned both in butter and cheese-making. To attain the most profitable results there is no doubt that the farmer will have to farther improve his cattle, and feed them with the utmost care; while the dairyman will see the necessity of using every means which science and practice afford to enable him to extract all the cream from the milk and all the butter from the cream, as well as to make, salt, pack, and ship the butter in the most perfect manner. With regard to cheese the case is not so immediately hopeful. I have been unable to find, either in the various reports with which I have been furnished from different sources, or in the samples of cheese I have yet examined, or in the evidence of gentlemen employed in London in the New Zealand trade, that the highest class of Cheddar cheese is really made in the colony to any extent. To make such cheese and to ship it successfully is vitally important, for success page 6 cannot be attained by any other means. I believe that if two or three expert makers were sent to New Zealand with the object of giving lessons in the farmhouses, dairies, and factories, showing by actual demonstration how the work should be done, and at the same time explaining the reason for each process and showing in what particulars old practices are wrong, a great amount of good might be done. This plan has succeeded in Scotland, and many prize-takers owe their entire success to a short course of practical instruction The first point will be to make cheese properly; the second to ascertain the best mode of shipping it with success. I would respectfully suggest that the Government should undertake both matters—the provision of teachers, and a series of simple experiments in the transmission of butter and of cheeses of various ages, packed in different ways, and shipped in rooms at different temperatures, in accordance with the suggestions made in this report. I should be very happy to undertake to obtain the assistance of two or three experts with the view of meeting consignments of this kind, and of both testing and valuing each sample. Although butter and Cheddar cheese are the staple dairy-produce of the colony, I believe that any stimulus given to subsidiary industries, such as condensed milk, and cheese of the other varieties referred to in the report, will be well rewarded in time. A certain number of makers, possibly few, would be induced to commence, and in such a country they would be the pioneers overcoming difficulties and laying the foundation of other branches of dairying, which would not only relieve the great butter-and Cheddar-producers, but probably net greater profits than are now obtained by the manufacture of those goods. I have also suggested that much might be done, and at a comparatively small cost, by the purchase of stock dairy-cattle in England for the use of the New Zealand fanner, and by the establishment of an experiment-station. The dairy-farmers of the Continent have received immense benefit from the experiment-station. It has solved many a problem and unravelled many a difficult question which had been a source of unceasing loss. If necessary, I will forward plans and descriptions of the best of these stations, which, it may be remarked, are conducted at a cost of merely a few hundred pounds per annum. Lastly, I have made a suggestion which may be found worth the while of business-men of energy and capital to consider Margarine came to England many years ago under the name of butterine. It acquired a reputation, and its sale became enormous. Agitation caused the Government to change the name, although those engaged in the trade declared that the alteration would partially destroy the sale; but it had no effect, for butterine came to stay. Danish shops have opened in all parts of the country. They will increase and thrive because our people must be fed, and no single English county owns a sufficient number of cows to supply its own population with dairy-produce. If Danish why not New Zetland shops? Every argument tends to strengthen the case of direct page 7 sale to the consumer, as opposed to the present system, by means of which equally high prices will never be obtained, on account of the more complicated process of sale and the less attractive manner in which the butter is placed before the public. As a practical dairy-farmer, I have confidence in making these suggestions, and 1 conclude them by remarking that I shall be happy to be of service, if that is possible, to any one in the colony who is engaged in the dairy industry.