THE CITY AND ITS MILK.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1878, 11 October 1913, Page 7

THE CITY AND ITS MILK.

INSANITAKY STATE OF AFFAIRS,

The condition of the milk delivered in Wellington, for household purposes is, according to Mr. Grovillo, alitor of tho " Dairyman," by no means what it might bo. Some 6000 gallons of milk, ho states, oomas into tho- Oity daily, ond there is no effective' supervision over it. Much of it arrives in cans which would not bo accepted at a dairy factory, and vory little of it has undergone any effective cleansin'g process. At the invitation of Mr. Grevillo a Dojunion reporter yesterday visited the officos of that paper, whore he was ehown a five-gallon drum one-third full of a ghastly lookiiig collection of filthy matter. "Do you know what that is? asked Mr. Grevillo. The answer was quite naturally in the negative, That mass of filth, explained the questioner, : ; "wa-8 taken yesterday from 4000 gallons of milk, a quantity equal to tho two-thirds or the daily consumption of tho City." '

Mr. Grevillo proceeded to explain that the matter had _ been taken from tho milk with tho aid of a piece of machinery termed a "clarifier." 'He contents of tho can were made up as follows:—60 per cent, water and 40 por cent, of blood, caseous (casein) matter ,or pus, cow-dung, and stock-yard and othor filth.

Mr. Publaw, assistant professor of tlio dairy industry Cornhill University at Now York, gives the percentages of matter extracted by tho "clarilier" n3 f0110w:—67.3 per cent, water, 1.1 por cent, fat, 25.9 per cont caseous -.matter (casein), 6.3 per cent ash, and 2.1 por cent otlior substance. Mr. Groville, besides expressing tho opinion that it was high timo tlio City ijnilk supply was put through a clanficr, declared that tho present system ■of distribution was faulty _in many ■ways. For instance, a dairy farmer might fill one of his cans with tho milk from two cows which happened to bn giving a largo quantity of poor milk containing, say, '2.5 per cent, of but-ter-fat. Anotlior can might contain tho otrippings from several cows just reaching the end of their milking period, and this would have about 4.5 per cent, of buttor-fat. Ono day tho poor milk might go to people, say, on tho Tcrraco, and th» rich milk to Kelburne, and the jiext it might bc» tho other way about. Tlio difference in th« quality of tho mijlc, Mr. Grevilh declared, would bo Jiuits enough to upset a baby which was ed on it. His idea was that, as in many towns in England, tho milk Should go through a municipal depot, ■where it would all be tested, clarified, and tho whole of each fanner'n milk mixed up toaethor, so ob to givo evenness of quality.