TESTING MILK.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3057, 18 February 1892, Page 2

TESTING MILK.

We understand that considerable dissatisfaction exists just now among the milk suppliers to several of the Waikato creameries. in respect to the plan of tasting the milk. This feeling is not by any means a new one. The present mode of testing by the cream gua?e glass has always been regarded —even by Messrs Reynolds and Co.—as only a temporary expedient, giving just an approximate test of the cream, and cert linly not to be taken as a reliable test of the butter richness, yet the latter is really what is wanted. It is butter, not cream, that the dairy firms wish to pay for, and it is a well-known fact that many samples ot milk, while giving a good cream test, have come out very bad'.y in butter production. However, to return : Some curious anomalies appear to have cropped up this season. Dairies which tested ten and twelve per cent, at this time last year can now only get up to six and nine per cent. ; and although, owing to the dry weather, the milk supply has fallen off considerably, no corresponding rise has taken place in the cream percentage. Take the case of Mr C. E. Taylor, of Tamaliere. Last year his percentage at the Hamilton Factory was from ten to twelve ; this season it is only six. There is no suspicion of unfair treatment. Mr Taylor corroborates the creamery tosts with others taken at home finding that they are just the same. Yet when testing the milk for butter, he can. by ordinary pan setting, get lib of butter from 271bs of milk, which is very different from what might be expected from six per cent, milk. Again, at the Whatawhata creamery several suppliers have had their milk testing from five to eight par cent; yet the quantities of milk delivered at the creamery in these particular cases has fallen off to little more than half what they were a couple of months ago. Tβ the milk suppliers these results are both perplexing and disheartening. One point appears certain. If the co-operative dairy business—for such these creameries really are —is to flourish and attain the great proportions to which our soil and climate fairly entitle it, some much more reliable milk test must be introduced than the cream guago glass. The present system affects milk suppliers in two ways. First, the low percentage lessens the milk cheques and renders keeping cows an unprofitable business ; and, secondly, honest suppliers are liable to have the imputation cant upon them of either skimming or watering their milk. In the case of the supplier before-mentioned, that gentleman disposed of his cows at the last Hamilton sale, where, in spite of low percentages, they brought good prices.