THE MILK SUPPLY

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 121, 8 February 1918, Page 6

THE MILK SUPPLY

Sir.—T have communicated with tho Dalelield, leather,,ion. ami Levin dairy factories, as promised in my last letter, in your columns of January 01, audi the' Citv Council can now write them direct. "Either factory can select threo or four of their largest suppliers, who do their milking upon the best practical and cleoii methods, .ind scud Mio whole of their milk into town. Its distribution should be_a aimyle matter. Let mo warn the council upon too much reliance upon scientific experts and inspectors. These gentlemen iiieau y»elj, and their advice is oxcedcnt, but it is not practical according to present milking requirements. It is the farmer, who has to be protected and encouraged if tho consumer wants aii ample supply of milk and cream. Nor do I ask for more inspection at the farm than tho farmers car. hear, under present milking conditions. What tha council wants is an ample milk supply for the city, under best present producible conditions. The council not. to dream of aiming at ideal scientific requirements, which it is impossible to obtain, whilst the war is on, or the train services run as at present. My advice is to rule tho. experts out for the present, and apply simple practical methods.

My own home in Carterton is supplied with miik once daily, when my wife has it scalded 1 (usually boiled I fancy), and it keeps sweet and good 360 days out of 365. Boiling it means anything from 190 deg. to 212 deg. Pasteurising means heating it to about 155 deg. to 160 deg.- only, which; is sufficient to kill any haimful bacteria. Cream is also pasteurised now before being made into butter, aid. Dalelield dairy factory could se«d you about 25 gallons of cream a day I don't know how far tho Levin factory is from the railway, hut the threo factories ought to be ablo to Bend you CO gallons of cream a day easily, and 1800 gallons of miik. Other Wairarapa factories could send you another 100 of cream. There is iu idea that unsealded milk is better for babies, but harmful bacteria are not then destroyed. Itich Jersey milk- is bad, in my opinion, for them—DutchFriesian (commonly, and wrongly, called Holstein) heing the best. Personally I would not dream of drinking unscalded milk, so utter is the filth that conies from most milk yards, and cannot always be avoided. The Railway Department will no doubt provide insulated milk vans for both morning and evening trains if icquirod. Perhaps the local Hutt cheese factories would pasteurise some.of their milk and send it into town.

But the whole future question of improvement depends upon quicker transit to the city, which can only be done by constructing the Wainui tunnels. The council should only apply present practical producing conditions, in this question, ruling out inspectors as much as it can. I don't ask for any more farm inspection, leaving that matter between the dairy factory managers and the farmers. Nor do I ask for any inspection in transit. The dairy factories and their suppliers are honest traders, and it will only do harm for the council to bring upon them the impossible requirements o£ the experts. More inspection, perhaps, is needed among the small handmilked herds, immediately around tha city, but I would not inspect them too much, or ask too great a test from them, under present milking conditions, if the council wishes to keep up a full and ample supply for the city. The war is on, and consumers should

remember that. Where the inspection is most needed is among the boys who serve the milk around in the city. Tliese should not.be fined, but rewarded if they act properly, and sent to gaol for watering the milk if the.v act wrongly, as in my opinion some of them, knowing how difficult it is to get boys, just do as they please now, Tho bottle and block system advocated by Mr. Gi'e\;ille is a good system. But I would point out to that gentleman, that the whole Hutt Valley will be required directly for residential areas, .and tho council must look farther afield; until the great suburban area of the Wairarapa Lake lands aro brought within 30 minutes of the city, which they can be, and should hava been 20 years ago. I therefore propose to have three bottles only for the present, of 600 gallons each, at the three dairy factories named above. Still, the council might apply the small bottle and block system in its plan of distribution. The consumer would then receive her pasteurised milk direct from the factory vat uninterfered with. If the council depends upon itself a 9 practical citizens, and not upon the experts and inspectors so much, I see no difficulty in giving the city an amplo supply of good, clean milk and cream quite as good as I use myself year in and year out. But I want no prosecutions of the dairy companies, and very few among the milk vendors near the city, as too many prosecutions only make people dishonest, who otherwise would not be so. I will go_into tho question of quicker transit in a further letter. The idea of the scientific experts ad-* vising the use of ice in certain process of milk production and transit, when he cannot get the chemicals now to produce the ie», shows that they am up in the clouds, and quite away from practical requirements. I have felt fill along that the rxressive inspection was reducing the milk supply of the city to the vanishing point, aud I can fully sympathise with the ITult fanner} erecting cheese factories. The citv has simnly killed the goose that laid tho golden egg, and it is much tho samo in nearly all tho towns of the Dominion.—l am, etc., COLEMAN PHILLIPS.