COLONIAL PRODUCE.

Manawatu Times, Volume IV, Issue 102, 25 December 1880, Page 2

COLONIAL PRODUCE.

The fact that butter during the past season has been a perfect drug m the market, and the announcement that an enterprising resident of Invercargill has already taken steps for exporting the commodity for the Home market ; that, and the introduction of Australian meat into the English market are two matters which vitally affect colonists m the southern hemisphere, and should cause them to watch the result of both experiments with the keenest interest. With regard to the first, we recollect many, months since an English cablegram announcing that a process of preserving butter without the use of salt had been discovered, whereby the flavor of the newly made article was preserved. We have watched intently our Home files since then, but have tailed to gather any information concerning it, but that such a method was discovered, and that its superior advantages over the old way must be inferred from the fact of the news having been deemed sufficiently important to warrant the expense of flashing the news to the Antipodes. Although we have not learned to what peculiar process Mr. Hamilton, the Invercargill trader, subjects the produce to prepare it for a three month's voyage, and still retain all the qualities of fresh not salted butter, still the fact remains that he has undertaken the venture, and the presumption is that he has fully assured himself of success by well-tested trials. News also comes to us from Australia that the projectors of the frozen meat movement have gone into the scheme with an energy and enterprise which if they do not command success, are certainly deserving of it. They had made application to one of the passenger stcamen for certain concessions m the matter of room which was absolutely necessary for the true testing of the experiment, and as the owners of the vessel were not prepared to grant them, the director* of the company have specially chartered a vetsel, which is to be fitted up with every appliance so as to give the venture a fair trial. Of course should the experiment of the exportatien of carcases under the frozen process succeed, as we sincerely trust it may, it will be largely patronised by the squatters and graziers of Australia, but the stookowners of New Zealand will be unable to participate m its benefits unless by the floating of a similar company and the possession of a plant m this colon) ; and consequently if we are to deal m the exportation of meat, it must be prepared for shipment: after the old manner of salting. For time immemorial, salt, either m a crude state or converted into brine, has been recognised as the only, or at least, the orthoI dox way of preserving butter. For generations people have been content to jog on m the ways of their ancestors, to keep well m the ruts worn down by their forefathers. But of late people have become demoralised, and have forsaken the honest paths of the good old soulsof ahundred years ago. The growing greed of grain which possesses the present generation has been unaMe to resist the temptation offered by the great disparity m the price of the two articles to increase the legitimate profits of the dairy, by the surreptitious admixture of an undue proportion to the preserving element with their butter. To such an extent has this been carried, that during our colonial experience, we have, on more than one occasion had butter placed before us which approached more closely to the confines of buttered salt than of salted butter. This practice of adulterating butter — for it can be designated by no more suitable term — has, no doubt, had something to do with the discovery. To a certain extent, our remarks as to butter curing are applicable to beef. Salt is the generally recognised " curing " medium, and has been so for generations. As with butter, ■o with beef, we have been content to tread m the "good old ways" of our forefathers, without giving the matter second thought as to whether some better process could not be devised. We do not refer to tinned meats, for these are partially cooked, and a? such are foreign to the object we have m view. As we have said the freezing process has been initiated, but as we have shown its cost is an obstacle to its coming into general use. In order to get rid of their surplus 1 eef, tho breeders of New South Wales have had to fall back upon the old fashioned method of " salting." Though the temptation to use an undue quantity of salt m the process is not so great as m buttering, it prevails to some extent, and experience proves, m the great majority of instances, that the beef is "as salt as brine." If chemistry can do so much for butter — if it can revolutionise the present method of curing it — a method which has been m vogue for centuries — the probability is that it can be turned to practicable and profitable account m the matter of meat curing also. What we should suggest to stock producers is, that they should combine, and offer a good thumping reward — a reward sufficient to induce practical and scientific men to devote a little time and attention to tke subject — for an efficient inexpensive process of preserving meat, ci trier m the carcass or tierced. We feel assured that an appeal m this matter made lo philanthropists at Home would be liberally responded to. Should such a consummation be achieved, it would not only aid the colony m its present emergency, but would confer immense benefits on millions of laboring men and women m the Old Country, to whom animal food is a luxury, untasted at the present time for months and months together. The benefits resulting from sneh a process being discovered, would not be confined to the laboring classes, for the middle classes would also participate m them. The middle classes are Great .Britain's back-bone, and these, owing to the depression of trade at present, and for many months past prevailing, find meat at its present price— from one shilling to eignfceen-pence a pound — a tremendous tax on their resources. Few m this colony have any idea of the frightful distress which permeates the middle and lower strata of society at Home at the present moment, and we are indisposed to lift the veil from the future which awaits them during the approaching winter. These considerations weigh with us m thinking that an appeal for i co-operation m some such scheme as we have suggested would meet with a liberal response at the bands of phtfaiw

thropists of the Home Country— and their name, we are proud to say, is Legion. We might go a step further, and say that this is a matter not beneath the notice of the Imperial Government. Our argument m support of this view is simply this : that if the working classes — those from whom our army and navy are recruited — are to be deprived of the diet to which they and their progenitors have T>een accustomed — the race will speedily degenerate as surely as the night follows the day. Question it whoso lists, " the roast beef of old England," forms no mean factor m giving her soldiers and sailors that indomitable pluck and courage that makes them what they are, deprive them of this, and their prestige will fade away.