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Progressive Dairying at Norsewood, Hawkes Bay: A Model Dairy Factory

 
This is an article from 'The New Zealand Farmer, Bee & Poultry Journal' June 1898, p. 183-4 written "By Our Special Reporter". It provides interesting insight to Norsewood at the time and the development of Dairy farming in the area.

"These dairy factories have been the making of this settlement," said the Casual Traveller to me as we stood on the verandah of the Junction Hotel at Norsewood, Hawke's Bay, and looked at the tumbled masses of the Ruahines that served for background to a frontage of well-looking homesteads. The little village looked prosperous enough, and is the most polyglot place of its size and kind I have struck yet.

Between Ormondville, the nearest station, and Norsewood itself, I had come along the 'Danish line,' so called because it had been settled by Danes; the road that led off to the right was the German line, having been colonised by emigrants from Germany; the village itself and the bulk of the district beyond had been settled first of all by Norwegians and some few Swedes, 'Skandies,' as the local term is.

The church, large and well kept, is singular for having three services held in it each Sunday. The first for the Germans, the second for the Danes, each of these in the language suited to the nationality, the third, in the evening, is given in English, which all the young people speak as their mother tongue. ‘Alfred's laws and Chaucer's speech are theirs, whether they will or not,' as Dilke says in ‘Greater Britain.' You would not think that here was found the model for a dairy factory, yet so it turned out.

When the delegates set about the North Island from Pemberton, back of Feilding, to find out which they thought the best factory to copy, had travelled from Midhurst in central Taranaki, a good place to start with, anyhow, to Norsewood, and had visited about sixteen factories in all, not one of them less than good, it was the design of the one at Norsewood that pleased them best. They recommended it to their shareholders when they came back, and their report was unhesitatingly adopted. So hearing, I turned aside at Ormondville to visit the New Zealand townlet.

Almost the first thing to take my attention was the apparition of so many 'bush landaus' as they are termed by the local wags, taking the milk to the factories. These vehicles are peculiar to the district and were introduced by the original Norwegian settlers, being facsimiles of the little one-horse country waggons (sic) of their native land. They are like a long low box set upon a pair of axles that are fitted with block wheels not more than, if as much as, two feet high. Each is drawn by one horse.

There are no springs or throughbrace straps. A reach connects the two axles, and a wide foot-board is built up between the shafts. The block wheels, either cut out of a big enough log, or sawn out of thick plank, are tired, and run on iron 'arms' (pivots). Being low, they are easily loaded; being simple in construction, they are cheap, the price being from £8 to £9 each. Most of them, nowadays, are not made with the block wheels, but with a rough four-spoke wheel, like a Greek Cross, and with four roach backed felloes between the extremities of the spokes, forming a complete rim, and bound with a good strong tire.

One that I saw went further still, for the driver had got a buck-board platform of narrow boards, which formed a springy floor to put his milk cans on, while for himself he had made a spring seat in another way, with some old wire couch springs placed between two boards, at each end of which he had fixed a rounded stick, sliding up and down in auger holes bored in the ends of the bottom board. There were several of these contrivances rattling merrily along that bright morning.

I followed on their tracks, passed the church, and turned in to the left where the new co-operative factory, in all the glory of new paint and in the full swing of early morning business, stood before me. The main features of the building and the fitness of the design to the site struck the accustomed eye from the outset: a lengthier examination gave fuller knowledge, and then it was made quite clear to me why the Pemberton delegates had fixed upon the Norsewood design as a survival of the fittest.

The little side road goes along the face of a slope, down which the main line of the factory runs. The rate of slope is pretty smart, and the one leading governing principle that is visible all through is that of making gravitation do everything that it can do in lessening expense in first construction, and in labour and power during manufacture. The credit of this design in all its practical adaptation to circumstances is due to the architect, Mr L.G. (Ludolph Georg) West, of Palmerston North, and economy and efficiency have been made to go hand in hand, no unimportant thing for a body of not wealthy settlers.

The receiving platform is rather lower than usual, to suit the low floors of the little waggons above mentioned. It is better that traps and drays with higher bodies should have to drop their milk cans a little than any cans should have to be daily lifted a foot or more. The floor of the milkstand has the planking put down diagonally, so as to cross the joists and plates at an angle, forming with them a sort of truss laid horizontally, the whole thus being virtually one piece of timber, and not liable to work loose or rack.

The wall plates and ground plates are double, not for heaviness so much, but to give a construction that, should one plate be inclined to warp, the tendency is resisted by its fellow. The foundation is in every instance of concrete, save in the engine room, where blocks of totara have been used, and the earth is the floor. Rimu has been chosen for the main building, except where the walls have come against the excavated sides of the site. In that case galvanised iron has been used, as for the roof also. Receipt slips are given to the milk suppliers, and the now standard seven-beam scale is used for weighing in.

A thousand cows are under guarantee, owned by 80 suppliers. The maximum supply of milk to be dealt with is 2,000 gals. daily, and up to 1,760 have been received, but the drought prevented a bigger tally from being reached. The average test through the season is about 3.8; in spring 3.6; now, autumn time, 4 per cent., the maximum being 6 per cent. at present.

The separator room is lined with inch match board lining, as from this point, with the exception of the engine room, the whole of the factory is. There are now two Alpha Delaval separators, each of 400 gal. capacity per hour. The second one is a later addition to cope with the increase of business. The milk is heated, but not pasteurised. Concerning pasteurising, its exact advantages and the best way of carrying the process on, Mr W.H. Duncan, the manager, is fully informed, and has come to an independent position of judgement. He knows that pasteurising, like separating, is not the be-all and end-all of butter-making.

To the right of the separator room as one follows the line of inclination, is the engine room, a plain shed, up-right boards, without battens, and iron roof, with a small room laid off in the corner nearest the main building, for salt storage. The boiler is a Tangye eight horse, almost dispensing with brick setting, being lined inside the furnace with brick as bought. The engine is a Tangye six horse, horizontal, and running smoothly. It was fitted with a sight-feed lubricator, Vacuum Oil Co. type, which is a great saver of oil, labour and machinery. The lubrication can be graduated to a nicety, one drop in five minutes or less: the average being one drop in two minutes, lubricating the whole of the steam from a point in front of the throttle valve, so that from the governor to the exhaust there is constant lubrication. A pint of oil in three weeks suffices, being very much less than when the oiler on the valve chest was used. And whenever machinery is used in the factory, there is a drip pan under each bearing to prevent wastage of oil.

The escape steam is led to a feed water heater, so that the heat of the steam, after it has done its work, should not be lost. This part of the design is due to Mr Duncan himself. The line of the main axle is coincident with that of the main run of the building, so that the shafting can operate the different machinery with a minimum of detail. It is obvious, indeed, that the arrangement of the machinery preceded the planning of the building, which is as things ought to be, for a structure, once put up, uses no power to run it which machinery does. The fuel used is matai, given the preference over rata, which is thought not to give such good embers. Matai costs 11/- per cord delivered.

On the other side of the separator room is the cream room in another lean-to. Here there are four large tin cream vats, set in a tank of cold water. The cream runs down hill along guttering into vats, and after a due time of storage, is let run through galvanised 'treacle gates,' with brass working face, into a churn room. The churn room is situated with 8 in. of sawdust, the studs being in two rows and are 'joggled,' i.e. are placed alternately on either side and do not reach across the interspace, to communicate the sun heat from outside. There is an extra lining of brown paper to prevent the sawdust coming through the cracks.

Overhead is a set of iron piping, running backward and forward, and having a current of cold water continually circulating through it. This cools the upper stratum of the air, which then descends and displaces other and warmer air, which rises to come in contact with cold water pipes and be cooled in turn. I was once in a dairy factory where the cooling pipes were laid along the bottom of the cool room. Fact! As the site is said to be 1,500 ft. above sea level, cool nights and breezes are the rule.

Added to this is a fine water supply. There are four open wells, two of them fed by springs, each of these last flowing at a rate of 2 gals. per minute when emptied. The temperature unvarying practically, is 55deg. F. in the cream room. With all these natural advantages, a refrigerator is to be got, though whether it will be a Linde-British or a Hercules has not been positively decided upon.

From the cream room to the churn room, farther down the slope, is a fall of about 8ft I should say, guessing. Here, for the first time since the milk is taken in, is there any handling done. The cream runs into the 'Cherry churn,' a box form of churn. of 5cwt. maximum capacity, though 400lbs. is found to be the easiest load to put upon the churn. The lifting of the butter from the churn to the butter worker is the first manipulation needful, and the manager has worked up a thousand gallons of milk single handed. This was before the output was 'pounded,' i.e. put into pounds before boxing, as is now the rule. The churn is supported between two heavy vertical timbers, that go well below the cement floor and rest upon broad, square footings. The scantlings and these uprights are all braced firmly together as one constructional whole.

Next to this, and last, was the butter working room, also, largely, the store-room, lofty and airy and insulated; just below the ceiling was hung a shallow tray, full of cold water in constant circulation, by steam pump from the wells. This ensured cold air all through the butter room. Ventilation was afforded by a louvre in the end wall through which the night air was allowed to play freely.

On the same side as the cream room and alongside the butter room, doubling, in fact, the protection from the sun, was in fact the box room. The butter worker was the best in standard use, namely, the outward slope, high rim, large single roller with deep, rounded flutings. The exit port was fitted with a double slide to prevent the escape of the valuable cold air, and to all the cement floors, from the separator room down, there was a trap to every drain to prevent ill odours from coming back into the building.

The cost of the factory, with machinery (one separator, costing £100, only) was £800. Out of this the engines and boiler cost £250. Roads, fences, wells and all, the cost was £1,070. The number of the factory is 600, and the 'Canary Bird' brand has a good reputation. The boxes were lined with strong double parchment paper, and each pound was wrapped in similar paper, giving ample protection.

The suppliers themselves are looking up the question of winter feeding, and green oats, for cutting and feeding to cows, has been largely sown to make up for the grass shortage. Were this not done, the cows would come in indifferently out the spring.