FARM AND DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 371, 23 April 1910, Page 7

FARM AND DAIRY.

DAIRYING .Mlvl'llOUS. COLONIAL AND DANISH SYSTEMS COMIWKKD. An officer of the dairying branch of the Agricultural Department of Victoria, speaking recently 011 the Australian methods of conducting every branch of the dairying industry, and of (he extensive use of mechanical appliances for making, washing, salting, weighing and packing butter for export, remarked that he thought Australia could show the whole world a strong lead in these various respects. "In short," he said, "1 believe that no country can approach Australia for up-to-date apphaances in connection with the dairying industry, and if anybody wishes to he convinced of this fact he has only to attend one of the biograph entertainments at which are shown pictures of dairying in Denmark and other places, where the crudest methods are in operation. Of the hundreds of tons of butter sent away every year from Victorian factories," he added, "not one pound weight of the produce lias ever been touched in human hands. It passes by mechanical process from the cow to the pail, and on in closely covered tins to the creamery and factory, where it is automatically •handled and measured, passing ou to the vats and churns, and later to the washing .place and into the boxes without any human being getting nearer to it than within inspecting distance. Everything that machinery can do is done' in Australia by automatic and other mechanical appliances, and the most advanced methods of .sanitation that human science and ingenuity can devise have been adopted, But, according to the pictures of Danish methods, they are not nearly as advanced as we are, for hand labor and treatment by the actual use of human hands constitute the principal feature of the whole system. It is quite clear on looking at the pictures that the milking yard arrangements are nothing like ours, while the manufacturing -section of the work involves considerable handling of the butter under conditions very tar from perfect. Evidently, the Danish butter makers are sufficiently proud of their system to cause them to have film photographs taken of their operations, but if those people saw biograph pictures of our operations, they would realise how far they are behind. The British and other consumers of butter from the two countries, Denmark and Australia, do not know how much superior our methods are, and it strikes me that it would be money well spent if the Commonwealth authorities were to have complete and elaborate sets of dairying pictures taken in the various States ami made a point of displaying those pictures bv means of the biograph a!l oyer Britain. Pictures of Danish methods could also be shown by way of contrast, and the consuming public midit be invited to draw tucir own conclusions.''

A co-operative scheme for the marketing of eggs and poultry has been promulgated by the Victorian Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Graham). Mr. Graham proposes the expenditure of CI.">00 ;t

mulgated by the Victorian Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Graham). Mr. Graham proposes the expenditure of CI.">00 a year for a year or two in the establishment of a number of ''egg circles" throughout the State. Each of these eirtles will have as its centre a secretary, whose duty it will be to receive the eggs brought in by the farmers and breeders of the district. The secretary wil) pay spot cash, market rate, for all sound eggs weighing 2ozs or over. He will forward his eggs to the State cool stores, where they will be tested more I carefully, and graded. The eggs will then be sold to the best advantage, and any profits, after the payment of expenses, will be returned to the farmers. The local secretaries under the scheme win be paid y 2 d per dozen eggs they receive. Mr. Graham has been assured by his expert advisers (says the Argus) that the scheme will become self-.sup-porting in Victoria in three years, and that in five years it will raise the State's annual production of esgs and poultry from £1,750,000 to .£5,000,000.