FARM AND DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 179, 7 January 1915, Page 3

FARM AND DAIRY.

FAULTY MILK. There is a notable article in the current number of the Journal of the Brit- - ish Board of Agriculture on the above | 1 subject. The investigation was carried 3 out on a farmo which the present s ' writer happens to know, and the re--1 suits of these investigations arc matters of wide interest to dairy farmers, f It was found in some instances that j there was a bad flavor developed in the . cheese manufactured, and it was con- . sidered that this must be due to the j original taint in the milk. The cows were divided into groups according to tlie milkers; in other words, the bulk of milk produced by each worker was 1 tested by itself, but it was found that, f the bad milk occurred in all. ' 'ien aiii individual test of each cow wr - made, 1 and it was discovered that t> was I iiere and there a cow which ive a tainted product, and this applied : m some- , thir.g Mke It! per cent of the Unt dor ordinary circumstances the coagula- . tion of the milk takes place in a way i which leaves the curd in a sort of jellified condition. Where the taint, occur- ■ red, the curd separated into flakes, leav- , ing a watery serum behind, quite unlike the ordinary whey. It was found on examination that every one of these cowa which yielded tainted milk had had mammitis or "weed" *t oue time or another, and although yii«e appeared to be perfectly healed up, it seemeil that they continued to throw olf deleterious germs into the milk. Jt was found that the good milk was all right, anil it was only that obtained from these special cows which caused the trouble. The experimenters next thought that scalding this tainted part proved a success, and a trial sliowed that it was so, and cured the trouble so thoroughly that the cheeses made were able to take prizes. Tiie scalding of the milk, however, was actually a returning to the old practice, where a part of the milk used to be heated up separately in a copper or boiler and then returned to the bulk for the purpose of raising the temperature of the whole. Scalded milk does not make cheese very easily—it does not "Cheddar out" so well, as it is phrased; but scalding a portion and returning it to the bulk does no harm whatever, and in this particular case raising the temperature of the infected milk to ICO deg. i\ cured the whole trouble. Wo have ■here a great lesson in the methods of treating milk, and this is one of which cheese-makers will no doubt take no-

tice. If a taint is found at any time, examination _ will nearly 'always 'show that it comes from individual cows, and if the milk of these individual cows is specially treatod, it saves a great deal of trouWo. This investi- | gation is a great Step in advance. I BELGIAN FARM EXPORTS. 1 Before the war, Belgium amounted ! agnCiiiiLiiaiij, Hj a nuge truck farm, euy- ! P'ying the great cities of London ftlid i Paris with garden and orchard dolicac(ies, Last year tlie United States iml Farted about £200,000 worth of nursery stock, evergreen and deciduous ornamental trees, and some fruit trees. Belgium divided this big sale with France, , tigtaiid and Holland, Among tlie garI deii seeds, America imported during a year 887,338 pounds of beet, 149,0(57 pounds of carrot, 8057 pounds of ! cauliflower, 129,.103 pounds of parsley, | 110,921 pounds of parsnip, 503,700 pounds ' radish, and 50 per cent, of the pars- ; 1,233,172 pounds of turnip, 358,761 ( pounds of onion, and 273,140 pounds of | cabbage. France supplied sixty per cent 1 of the carrot, seventy per cent of the radish, and fifty per cent of tlie parnip seed. England furnished eighty per cent, of the turnip seed. Denmark sent fifty per cent of the cabbage and cauliflower seed, the rest coming from Holland, Italy, France, and England. Onion seed conies from the Canary Islands, with scattering varieties from Italy and France.