The Daily Times. The Oldest Manawatu Jounal: Established 1875. TUESDAY, DEC. 4, 1883. THE ASHBURTON CHEESE FACTORY.

Manawatu Times, Volume IX, Issue 1118, 4 December 1883, Page 2

The Daily Times. The Oldest Manawatu Jounal: Established 1875. TUESDAY, DEC. 4, 1883. THE ASHBURTON CHEESE FACTORY.

Ths above has been frequently alluded to as a model establish ment of the kind, and now that a dairy fac* tory is being established at Karere, any information m regard to its working must prove interesting to residents m this district. Recently several Southern journals have commented upon the alleged failure of the factory, and a contemporary, m view of this, has collected the facts of the case from the most reliable sources. As the result of its inquire ies it finds that upon thorough investigation they do not appear so discouraging as represented, and as a brief statement of these facts may be useful to enable our local factory to guard against falling into the errors of others, we proceed to sum* marise them. In the first place, our contemporary states that it is quite true that the result of last season's operations was a slight loss to the -shareholders. Against this, however, must be set the fact that all the contributors made more money out of the sale of their milk than they have ever made by turning it into butter. Unfortunately,, the company last year did not insist upon all the contributors being shareholders; This was only one of several mistakes incidental to the inauguration of a new' industry, which will not be repeated. The price paid for milk -last .season was id., per gallon of lOlbs, delivered at the factory. It has now been discovered that it takes nearly lllbs of milk to the gallon, and that, although these lllbs make as nearly as possible lib of curd, they do not make lib of cured cheese., which was the result at , firsts calculated upon. The fact -hat cheese" while maturing shrinks from 12 to 20 per cent, had been overlooked not only by the company, but apparently by Mrßowron, whois

maiuly responsible for the estimates. The efforts expended fruitlessly toob' tain the Government bonus forthe first fifty tons of cheese exported and sold at a fair price m a- foreign market constitutsd another cause of loss. It was not only by -tho Government that obstructions were hhi-own m the way of the bonus being secured. The difficulties of traru.port were found to be insuperable. The New Zealand Shipping Company absolutely refuse- to make any special arrangements, for shipping cheese unless 100 tons were guaranteed. This was an impossible .quantity, as the factory's entire output for the season was not much more than half the weight. The freight of Id per lb which has been charged upon the small shipments already made, is very high, and will have to be reduced considerably if export trade is to become permanent. It is somewhat strange that a con* signment of butter shipped Home by the Catalonia, which also took some of the Ashburtou cheese, was taken at 90s per ton, or about a half-penny per pound. As regards the reception of their cheese on the London market the company have good reason to be satisfied, no-with* standing one very poor return. The Catalonia consignment just referred to, realised 63s per cwt., or 13s more per cwt than the ruling price of the best American. This cheese was shipped m the freezing chamber, which is not a very suitable place, an even temperature of from 50 to £>sdeg. Fahrenheit being considered the degree of coolness best calculated to preserve cheese on a long voyage. Taking everything into consideration, the otrt-iookof the company is not by any. means bad. They started the new season's operations last month. All contributors are now required to =be shareholders m the proportion of one share to every 20 gallons of milk supplied. The prico paid for supplies is reduced to 3d pei gallon, with proviso that after the payment of a fair dividend to the shareholders, any surplus will be divided among the producers m just pro* portion up to4d per gallon. The con* tributors, although naturally objecting to the change, have accepted it m a friendly spirit, and the factory maintains its supply undiminished. By leasing the pig business with the whey at at a contract price, the management have been enabled to concentrate all their en«ergies on the manufacture of a good even article of consumption, which under the reduced expenditure they fully expect to be able to sell at a profit at less than 5d per pound. Last year €d per pound would not mo.'c than pay a fair dividend. The local market under the new regime will receive proper attention, and to provide for this a large proportion of small cheeses will be turned oat. The balance will be available for export subject to a considerable reduction of freight, which is an absolute necessity. At present the tttal charges . for shipment and brokerage amount to about 2d per pound, which is oul of all propor« tion and quite prohibitive.