The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1916 THE SHORTAGE OF RENNET.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 39, 13 September 1916, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1916 THE SHORTAGE OF RENNET.

The difficulty in securing adequate supplies of rennet is a serious problem for the cheese factories of New Zealand, and the unfortunate loss of a considerable shipment in the liner wrocked on our shores a few days ago makes matters worse. Efforts to educate the farmers in the proper way to tako the veils from calves are being made, and demonstrations such as that recently given at the Cardiff Factory are of great importance to one of our staple industries. The Bulletin of Pharmacy, a Detroit magazine for druggists, discusses the rennet question in its August issue, and in doing so remarks that a short time before the United States cheese factories were facing a real crisis; so acute a crisis, in fact, that some of them shut down. They | could not got rennet. "It is estimated," says a bulletin issued by one of the really big institutions in the American educational field, the University of Wisconsin, "that nearly one and one-half millions calf stomachs, yielding about 100,000 gallons of rennet extract, are used each year by the 5000 or more cheese factories in the United States. The supply of 'rennets' as these calf stomachs arc called, has in the past come largely from European countries, but dim t.> the war this importation has been stopped. As a result the supply of rennet extract is so reduced that it is difficult for any dealer or factory to obtain more than ten gallons at' a.time and frequently not more than! one or two gallons." The two lead-; ing American rennet factories arelocated at Madison, Wisconsin, and Little Palls, New York. They have, been importing their calf stomachs! from Europe quite regardless of the fact that Wisconsin calves, as well as Now York calves possessed stomachs.! "For more than a year," the Bulletin! tells us., "manufacturers in the Unit-! cd States have made efforts to buy rennets wherever milk-fed calves are butchered, and have offered as high as twelve' cents a piece for them when prvoperly prepared. . . As an; inducement to get factory operators and patrons to aid in the collection of rennets :it may be necessary for extract makers to supply extract at market prices only to those lactones which fitrnisli rennets in good condition in. exchange." However, as bad as aftl this might indicate the situation to he, its chief value the Bulletin o|f Pharmacy says!, lies m the moral it points. In this case it. argues, the calamity is not a cclnmit.v •jt'all and for this reason: American cheese- lactone.-; aie now using papain

iii the place of rennet. Further the American supply of popsin is believed to bo unlimited. The Americans do not import from Europe the stomachs from which it is made. The University of Wisconsin it is announced ex-. perimented a number of years «go along this line; and similar trials were made in Ohio and Canada, and the verdict is that "pepsin cheese was practically the same as rennet cliee.se in all respects." Burins more recent and much more comprehensive tests "no serious difficulty has been reported." Market tests, it is also, affirmed, have vindicated the pepsin cheese. Factories in the Stales are now buying pepsin, frequently in relatively large quantities in the dairy: districts of various States. Onefourth to two-thirds of an ounce of: dry pepsin is required to thicken one, thousand pounds of "ripened" milk! for the manufacture of American andbrick cheese. The same authority! states that pepsin should be weighed and dissolved in about twenty times; its weight of warm water—water at about 150 degrees Fahrenheit: merely "hot" water will not do. Undissolved: pepsin, if any, should be strained out. The solution should then be added to, a pailful of clean water, and this: pailful stirred, in turn, into the milk in the vat. After, adding the pepsin, the cheese-making is continued the. same as it would have been had rennet been used. If the American dairyman is finding a way out with pepsin it may be worth while our New Zealand factories looking into the matter. The matter seems to be of, sufficient importance for the Agricultural Department to make experi-j ments and at onco make known tlic ( results. !