HIGH STANDARD

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 118, 21 May 1930, Page 19

HIGH STANDARD

NEW ZEALAND HERDS

AUSTRALIAN VIEW

Iv the course of'an address on New Zealand dairying to the members of the Ondit Butter Farming League, Mr. J. Bankin, chairman of the Australian Dairy Council, and chairman of the Colac. Dairying Company, stated that much valuable information had been gleaned by the. members of the recent dairying delegation to New Zealand, says the Melbourne "Age." He said that one of the outstanding features wav the large number of butter factories, almost the V.lole of which were co-operative concerns. The largest factory visited had a yearly output of 3500 tons' of butter. • Cream was collected within a radius of five miles of tho factories. The standard of tho herds was very high,' Jerseys being the most' favoured breed. Cheese manufacture was extensively carried on, the conditions there permitting of tho manufacture of an excellent quality. The factory regulations were very strict. In some factories no milk would be accepted after 8 o'clock in the morning, and i- no factory would milk be taken after 9 o'clock. In one district there were fourteen cheese factories within a radius of twelve miles. A shareholder was compelled to hold one share for every 751b of butter-fat supplied, and if he supplied any other factory he forfeited all his shares.

Kef erring to grading, Mr. Bankin said the systeir. in New Zealand was very rigid and effective, while the dairy inspection, was almost perfection. A daily delivery of cream was enforced. If a consignment of butter was sent forward for shipment with an excess of moisture, it was sent back to the factory. The cattle compensation was provided wholly by the Government.

Mr. George Howey, a dairyman of tlio Colac district, who was a member of the delegation, also spoke. He referred to the way in which New Zealand dairymen conserved their surplus grass in the form of ensilage. Scarcely ;i far.i was without its ensilage stack or pit. Tho general practice was to subdivide the farm into small paddocks, and a. rotation system of grazing w.is adopted.