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429. Would you condemn all the timbers in the colony ? —Yes. 430. You have seen totara wood; that taints the butter ?—Yes, but it is the best of the New Zealand woods. 431. A man in Dunedin has introduced a box, and his system is to drive all the chemicals out of the sap and char the surface ?—Yes, all the surface should be charred, but that cannot take the taint out. 432. Your opinion is that no colonial wood is fitted for it ?—Yes. One stave of deal in a cask will destroy the butter. I could detect butter afterwards that had been gathered in a dish or tub made of deal. One tub of milk thrown into a hundred will spoil the lot. My advice is to get oak if you want really to send butter Home. The shopkeepers would give more for it when packed in well-made oak kegs. 433. Have you had any butter packed in totara?—Not very much. I never liked it. 434. Do you know 7 Pond's butter-boxes ?—Yes ; but that is not good for shopkeepers. They like casks. For instance, in Glasgow they make a speciality of having nice windows. They sometimes have as many as eight casks shown with a nice ticket outside. These casks go right along the window, and make a nice show, which takes the eye. 435. Do you not think we could send butter Home equal to Danish ? —No. 436. There is a system adopted in Denmark of tinning the butter?— Not for the Home market, but for tropical markets. I would not recommend that system. If you want to send butter to Japan, or other such places, you require to have it tinned; but the Home market has a prejudice for tinned butter. They might buy it when there is no other in the market. 437. Mr. Walker.] Does the process of freezing butter spring the staves ?—No; but after the cask gets heated it will spring. Like iron it expands, and then contracts when cold. 438. The Chairman.] Have you had much experience with cheese?— Yes, a good deal. 439. Can you calculate upon a good market at Home for our cheese?—lf you make it a good deal richer than you do; but you cannot compete with American cheese. 440. The whole of the cream should be kept in the cheese for export ?—Yes; the milk is poor enough without extracting anything from it. 441. Have you sent butter and cheese to the British market ?—I have sent butter, not cheese ; I import cheese. 442. Was the result of the butter export good ?—Yes. I took good care to select it. If not in actual form I would not send it away. When we bore it, if anything adheres to the back of the pail or auger we condemn it at once; butter that has been too much worked for instance. A good deal will stick to the pail—that is, butter that gets too much working—some time after it has been taken from the churn. 443. Butter can be too much worked ?—Yes; that is the great drawback to the butter trade ; the butter is actually destroyed. 444. You will be able to compete with American cheese ?—No ; you cannot send it in quick enough. You can have it from Canada in seven days. Unless you send it by steamer you cannot get it Home in less than three months. And the cheese is made on a different principle in Canada from that made here. Your pasture is. not so good ; it is poorer. The pasture is not so old. Old pasture is much better for giving cream than new pasture. The older the pasture the better the milk. You have a better breed of cattle; but Ayrshire is poor in milk. 445. All these matters might be got over ? —Ye3, I admit that; but you want practical knowledge. 446. You think that with practical knowledge you might compete with America?— Yes; but you want system. 447. Our cheese has been brought into competition at times with American cheese?— Yes, at times; but take it as a general rule you would not be able to compete with the Canadians. 448. I suppose the English Cheddar is as good as the American ?—Better; I saw as good cheese as any, made at Mr. Skerman's, Palmerston North. It was as good as the best American. 449. What are the best grasses for producing good cheese ?—The older the pasture the better. Ido not know the best grasses ; I am not particular about that. Pasture five or six years old is better than that of two years. 450. What do you think of feeding cattle upon root-crops ?—Turnips, for instance, make the milk very thin. Eoots do in winter time, when there is no feed; but they make the butter very light. Mangolds are much better than turnips. I should recommend mangolds, as they produce much better milk and butter. 451. What is the effect of feeding cattle on chaff and corn?—l would recommend that cattle get a white drink in the winter time—that is, meal melted and put in with mangolds or whatever else. I would give them sheaf straw ; they should not get pollard. Grains are very good in winter time, but they make the milk very thin.

Feiday, 22nd August, 1890. Mr. J. Eandall Moegan examined. 452. The Chairman.] You have had considerable experience in the butter trade?— Yes, about fifteen years on the London market. 453. The Committee desires to obtain information from you, and will leave you to give it as you think best. Afterwards the Committee will examine you upon any points you may not have sufficiently touched upon?—l shipped Home a considerable number of kegs of butter last summer, and I went Homo in March to see how the butter had got on. I found that the New Zealand butter will not take its place as a first-class article in the Old Country. In the first place, the journey is too long for it, and we find considerable carelessness about the making of the butter. From my experience