DAIRYING REVIEW

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2496, 24 June 1915, Page 8

DAIRYING REVIEW

BY MR. D. CUDDIE IMPORTANT SUGGESTIONS (By Telegraph.—Speoiaa Corri sDondcnt.) Palmerston North, June 23. A large crowd assembled at the Dairy Conference to-day to hear an address by the Dairy Commissioner (Mr. D. Cuddie), reviewing the past dairying season. Mr. Cuddie said that the outstanding feature of the year was tlio high prices obtained for' butter and cheese. Never before had the values gone so high, and the increases had come as a surpriso. As compared with previous seasons there had been an allround improvement in the quality of tho produce. However, there bad been some serious complaints from London about certain of the cheese. • Everyone realised that in order to get first-class clicesc they must have first-grade milk. There seemed to be only two ways of meeting the situation. First, of rejecting lowgrado milk and following this action up with some form of instruction, *md second, paying a lower price for inferior milk. Factory managers could/ and should, do something in tlio way of instructing farmers who were in need of such assistance. 1 " Some of the managers had done' what "they could, but others Jiad not, and the latter had not even kept thoir factories as they ought to he kept. A factory and its surroundings should -be neat, clean, and attractive. _ Speaking of pasteurisation Mr. Cuddio said that all knew what pasteurisation had done for butter, and it remained +-0 bo seen if it would do tho same for cheesc. Sonic of the Taranaki cheese factories had tried pasteurisation, and tho finished article had come out even better and cleaner in flavour than before, but some factories had branded as pasteurised cheese which would not be ail advertisement for .the new system. A number of pasteurisation plants were on order, and in the coming season the Dairy Division of the Department of Agriculture would give all the aid it could to the factories who were entering upon the change. Additional cool storage had been provided in the Dominion in the last year, and now the only port where large quantities of cheese were handled and there was no cool storage was AVellingtoii. However, he hoped to see a cool store established in time for the season after next. As to whey butter, there would have to be some change. AA'hey butter was branded "Factory butter,' 1 but ho thought the creamery butter industry should be protected by branding tho product in question "AVhcy butter." When tho whey butter industry was talked of here, no one thought that the quantity made would be bo great, or the quality of some of the article so poor. Soino 240 tons of whey butter had been exported from New Zealand to England last season. He did not believe that butter would be a decreasing product in New Zealand. He said that- the quality of the butter from many of the best factories in the past season had been very fine, and he thought it a great- testimonial to the excellence of our butter that 48} per cent, had been graded at 92j points and over. In the Auckland district a system of paying for. cream according to grade or quality' had been introduced, and was ■working well, and he would like to see tho system spread. Home separating was being moro generally gone in for, and the results showed that it was quite possible to get very good results with this system if the cream was well handled and not detained long at the farm. Now ivas a time when New Zealand should make every effort to attain the highest possible quality in its dairy produce. Competition in the markets was still as keen as ever. Mr. Cuddie mentioned that tho High Commissioner had cabled ou several occasions that London grocers had been fined for selling New Zealand butter which contained moro than the legal percentage of moisture. Steps must 'oe taken to rectify the exportation of such produce, and to deal with the factories who turned it out. Mr. J. Marx (Manga+oki) suggested that whey butter should be called factory butter made from wlioy cream. Mr. ;Ouddio said that h? would take that suggestion into consideration.