DAIRYING INDUSTRY

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 267, 31 July 1918, Page 8

DAIRYING INDUSTRY

VARIOUS ASPECTS

THE MANUFACTURE OF DRIED MILK Matters affecting dairying were dealt with by Sir James Wilson at the Farmers' Union Conference yesterday. He said:—"Tho dairv farmer has shown much vigour and enterprise during the past year, and cheese factories have in many ease* replaced those for butterinnking, nnd export of cheese has increased to nearly double that ol' butter. The aim of most progressive factories has been to have a dual plant, and many are adding the manufacture of casein, 6o that advantage can be taken of whichever product pays best. One factory is making sugar of milk with success, but it requires a very large supply of skim inilk to make it. payable, as the is very expensive. The whole daily community is excited nt the prospect of dried milk factories being started. Hitherto only one company has taken the manufacture up; but some enterprising companies in the Waikato are said to have got an improved process which will enable them at present prices io pay out for butter-fat over three shillings, and yet pay oil' the cost of buildings and machinery in two years. It reads like a tale ol El Dorado, but figures elsewhere give good grounds for the statement. The Minister of Agriculture, 1 think, wisely udvised the dairy people to tal;e as their motto, 'festina lento," and notwithstanding tho prospects in these abnormal times I think it was good advice. The rost of the plant is very high at present, and the number of cows required to justify the expenditure is 3000 and over, bo that not many districts could avail themselves of the chance. The process is, of course, one as.old as the hills, viz., evaporation, and so simple that, ona can imagine that any farmer could in his own yard have a small plant to reduce the liquid lo tho solid form if he wished, to.

"Dairy people can do even more than the wool-grower, for they have not advanced in the name way, by culling. We cannot expect them to havo cows such as Mr. Donald's, which gave nearly 1000 pounds of butter-fat. in the season, but the more general use of testing could raise the average weight of products considerably. The different breed societies and semi-official tests are pointing the way, but the general run of farmers are slow to practise, the system. It should not be difficult. With lhe.6amo feed the cows at present have to increase the export by a million sterling, Better cows and closer observation mean that farmer-? will provide increased winter and summer feed in the one case to keep up the condition of tho cow so ns to come, into milk in good order, and the other eo' that the dry summer grass can l>e supplemented by some moro succulent food. If this practice were carried out properly, and the fullest advantage taken of utilisation of the by-.products, it is conceivable that the industry might easily add another million sterling to their exports. The only way we can increase our meat exports is to speed up the plough. At the present moment, this is impossible, for it must bo remembered that everv idle team probably means- a hundred acres less in wheat or its equivalent in fodder crops. Tt is not fhe same hero as at Fome as far as the tractor is concerned. Tractors, so far as I have been able lo glean, can only do satisfactory work on the flat, and the price of fuel restricts their use, so that if. remains for our useful friend, or as Huxley calls him. 'our colleague,' the horse, to still nretinre most of the land in crop, nnd possibly we must wait for electrical power to displace him from our farms, if we cnn ever dn so. Thorn K however, something more renuir n d then the traction, viz., (ho man to direct it. The ploughman nt the nresent moment is perhaps th" most necessary man in the Dominion."