DUNEDIN NOTES.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 159, 30 March 1908, Page 10

DUNEDIN NOTES.

' (BY TEr.EGKATH—SPECIAL COriBESPOI'DEKT ) ' v Duncdini March' 28. . Mr. John Reid, of Elderslie;. lias completed the sale of the Balruddery Estate to an Asliburton syndicate.The price isnot divulged.The property consists of 16,650 acres of freehold and' 720 acres of educational reserve on the west bank of the Kakanui River,,and- carrics on an average 15,000 sheep, lit is the intention of the purchasers to cut up the estate into farms. The Government inspected Balruddery twelve months ago, but nothing further was done. ' The Master Bakers' Association, while agreeing that 7d. per 41b. loaf was a fair price for bread with flour at £11 ss. a ton, decided on Saturday , night that 1 the price to private consumers be fid; on and after Monday next. An employer in business in a' large waylays that if the present cutting prices continue it will mean ruination, especially to the smaller firms. ; "It is a very serious business," he added; "so serious that if it continues I cin expect a loss of £1000 in a very short time. We must now lose from Jd. to Id. on every loaf, of bread we deliver." "What man is there of. you who, if his son ask bread, will give him a,stone?" Not many surely, yet our women, who aro usually supposed to be mbre merciful, do not' hesitate to give their and their daughters, too,'food , that is .'almost Vps.innutritions as a stone. Dr.' Truby King showed this clearly during an address on Thursday night. The feature of tho address was the demonstration by analysis of the contents' of ten patent foods, which -were contrasted with, mother's milk, tho latter having the water evaporated from s it, so as to be in a dry state, and therefore directly comparable. The most striking difference was in the proportion of fat. In tho dried human milk there is from 25 to'-30 per cent.'of fat, whereas the average quantity present in the ten baby foods .was only 1 por cent. On the other hand, dried human milk contained some 55 per cent, of sugar.of milk, whoreas th-i patent fbods in quostion contained nono at all. -Oil tlie other hand, thoy were shown to contain 80 per cent, of starch, or modified storch, or maltose, which should not bo persent at all in the ordinary food of young babies. In regard to the composition of these foods,-ifc was pointed out- that as a class thoy \were essentially baked flour, with or without somo sprouted grain or malt extract.