DANISH BUTTER

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 24, 30 January 1928, Page 10

DANISH BUTTER

HOW IT IS PRODUCED UNHYGIENIC CONDITIONS MR. HARKNESS REPORTS (By Telegraph.) (Special to "The Evening Post.") AUCKLAND, This Day. "When so much is heard of the respective merits of New Zealand and Danish butter it is of more than passing interest to hear tho comment of such a well-known authority as Mr. J. G. Harkness, of Wellington, after his recent visit to Denmark. Mr. Harkness said that it is a bitter thought for those interested in the dairying industry of the Dominion to know that butter produced under such ideal conditions sells on the London market at 2£d per lb less than the price paid for Danish butter. Although not inclined to speak too freely of his experiences in Denmark, Mr. Harkness described a special visit he made in November to a State experimental farm in that country. He asked if ho might see one of the best herds. He was directed to a great barn and was told that he would find the best milk producing herd inside. By force of contrast with our own conditions, he received something of a .shock, for in that barn were 50 cows and three bulls, and they had been kept there for months on end. It was impossible for the hygienic conditions to be as favourable as those under which milking is done and separating carried out in New Zealand. "I was there for a couple of hours, from about 11 o'clock," said Mr. Harkness, "and eveu then the cows were being milked. The milk was run through the pipes to an adjoining section of the barn, and the separating was carried on there. Our authorities in New Zealand would demand better conditions, but, of course, we must not overlook the handicap of the cold winter "weather (snow on tho ground), which causes the herds to be kept entirely indoors for several months in the year." It seemed strange to see the animals having no more excrciso than they obtained by getting up and lying down, and, stranger still, to realise that milking was carried on throughout the winter, and butter made under the conditions which obtain in Denmark. Ensilage was in universal use, and loot crops were used to the fullest advantage. The herds wero milked practically all the year round, and thp Danes had evolved a dairying typo of their own. These were red cattle resembling Poll Angus in style, but having horns. They were large, well-con-ditioned cattle, and good producers. Mr. Harkness expressed the belief that New Zealandbutter is of superior quality, but it has to undergo a severe test in the way of refrigerated transit to London, and he doubted whether butter from Europe, after such transit, would open up as Well as the New Zealand article. "It is not," he concluded, "that New Zealand butter is worth less than certain other butter on tho London market; it is the fact that the people in England will pay more for the other butter.''