The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1932. DAIRY RESEARCH.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 January 1932, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1932. DAIRY RESEARCH.

Tub Empire Marketing Board nas secured from Sir William Dampier a

special report on. dairy research. Although the board claims it to be of

special interest to Australia because of its wishes to ascertain how reseuren can best be applied to help the Australian diairy farmer, the report is also of considerable interest to Hie industry in this Dominion, The import suggests the lines on which Work should he concentrated in order to reduce costs of production and improve tho quality of milk. Charts worked cut at the National Institute for lie search in Dairying at Reading show that the composition of the same cow’s milk varies from day to day, and even from morning to night. ims alteration in quality in turn affects the butter or cheese. Afore researcii is needed on the factors such as feed, breed, and climate, which may cause these variations. Sir William Dampter, who is a well-known scientist and is secretary of the Agricultural Research Council in Britain, states that future research is most urgently needed in the following fields:—(l) Improvement of pastures by plant breeding, frequent cutting, and intensive grazing; (2) the effect of differences in rationing oil the composition of milk; (3) the inheritance of high milkyielding qualities in cattle; (4) the physiology of milk secretion; (5) the fnnoclua.'tion of cattles against tuberculosis; (6) the survival of disease germs in dried and condensed milk; (7) the ripening of cheeses and the effect of storage conditions on butter and cheese; (8) economic,? of the industry. In the field of nutrition the most recent, advance is the discovery that young, fresh grass has a high protein content, “Young grass is specially efficacious in increasing the yield of milk,” says Sir William Dampier. “It is now, or soon will be, available in large quantities in the form of ensilage or dried cake, and more experiments on its influence on the quantity and quality of milk should be made ,as quickly as possible.” The work on the mineral eds o fcatteltanbib.a cwtirl ’jnnoffoyy needs of cattle, which natural pastures often fail to supply, is already well known- The report records two big advances in treatement of diseases. One is tlie working out at Cambridge of “8.G.G.” vaccine, which protects cattle from the -scourge of tuberculosis. Very promising results are being obtained, although the vaccine is not yet a commercial possibility. The other is the discovery of a method of diagnosing Johnne’s disease, one of the most costly complaints of dairy cattle. By using this test the disease can be detected in its early stages, and the infected animal can be separated from the herd and fattened. Sir William Dampier directs attention to the question whether pasteurising milk destroys any of the vitamins. Preliminary work at Beading indicates that this may lie so. Tn order to get results in the matter of high-viekling cows in a few years, Mr ■J. Hammond, at Cambridge, is studying the inheritance of milk yield in rabbits. The Dairy Institute has recently co-operated with the New Zealand Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in a study of the ripening of cheeses, and the report recommends that a cold storage plant should be erected at Reading so that shipboard conditions can be imitated.