AS OTHERS SEE US

Evening Post, Issue 56, 7 March 1934, Page 7

AS OTHERS SEE US

* DAIRYING EFFICIENCY CAN TEACH N.S.W. LITTLE SOME INFERIOR PASTURE I A general desire for the development of an effective system of co-operation ; in the marketing of Australian and I ; New Zealand butter in Britain, and ■ the success attained by factories in controlling the moisture and salt con- ' tents of their butter, were features _of the New Zealand dairy industry ■ which particularly impressed Mr. T. \v. Scott, Senior Dairy Instructor in the Eivenna, who returned to New South Wales on February 25, from a visit to the Dominion. ' Mr. Scott accompanied the farmers' ; party to Wellington, but left them there and spent his time visiting farms and • factories in Taranaki and the Waikato, .-and meeting prominent farmers, factory executives, and departmental officials. He told a Sydney interviewer that everywhere ho went he found marketing problems a foremost subject of discussion, the possibility of ; import quota restrictions . being im- -. posed by Britain after July, 1935, when -' the Ottawa Agreements expire, being a • source of widespread anxiety. He was ( surprised, however, by the unanimity " with which those connected with tho ? industry expressed a desire for co-opera-tion with Australia on the British markets. Everywhere he went farmers showed they had given the subject considerable thought, as also had factory ■ directors and others. The general opin- ; ion seemed to be that if the? Common' wealth and. Dominion, who together , now.Supply more than 50 per cent, of , Britain's butter imports;, worked in. co/fjperation, there would be a better " chance of successfully resisting a Brit- . ish attempt to impose the quota, which •■; is felt to be more or less inevitable. CONTROL OF MOISTURE. • From what he saw of factory • methods, both in the Waikato and Tara- : naki, Mr. Scott said he did not think • the New Zealand buttermaker had much to-teach his confrere in New South Wales. He mentioned, however, that they have been particularly successful in the Dominion in moisture and salt control. • At one factory he was ,' shown the factory returns for ' two 1 months, and these indicated'that mois- -' ture had varied between 15.8 per cent. ' and 15.9 per' cent., and salt between 1.8 ' per cent, and 1.9 per cent, throughout ( the period. In the Dominion every ' churn was sampled at the grading store ; for. moisture and salt, a Teport on each { "being . sent back to the factory, and he. was told that the average moisture ' content of the butter manufactured was i'about 15.8 per. cent., while the salt varied between 1.5 and 2 per cent. Mr. Scott also described the grading ' system now in operation. There were I three grades—finest, first, and second— and differential payments were made ac- ' cording to the grading of the cream. \ Factory suppliers were being constant- '' ly urged to improve the quality of tho cream they," delivered, but he found that factories frequently secured finest grading for well over 90 per cent, of "-. their season^ output. In one case the figure was'9B per cent. These results he considered' were made possible Jargct ly by the system of .daily, delivery, - which was usual, the, factories. being • comparatively, close together. v The export grading standard was rigidly enforced, and two officers were maintained in London to regrade the whole of the Dominion's exports on arrival. ' He tm- .< derstood that;only about 2 per cent. i- was- regraded down. - . r ■' As bearing on the New Zealand in- ' dustr'y's efforts- to meet the British. - consumers' tastes, Mr. - Scott said that there was a growing inclination to experiment with the use of starters with the object of producing a fuller flavoured butter. The starterywas used at the churn; and one f actsry : . had, sent to London a small shipmSnt of starter butter as an experiment. The butter was examined on arrival, and the report on it wascompletelxrsatisfactofy, but the factory was not encouraged to repeat the experiment —the butter was too much like Danish. ... GRAZING AND WINTER FEEDING. New Zealand dairy farmers, Mr. Scott said, did not seem, to have very much to teach the farmers here. Rotational grazing was not nearly so systematically practised as he had ex- ' pected to find it, and in some districts farmers had not. regularly top-dressed their pastures for two and even three years. It was universally admitted, however, even by those who were not doing it, that top-dressing paid, and in the Waikato it was often said to him . that running into debt to procure fertilisers was fully justified by results.. For autumn and winter feed there . was, especially in the Waikato, an apparent swing back to roots from grass silage, but in the opinion of. officers of the New Zealand Department of Agriculture, this was possibly due to the fact that there still was in the ag- ■ gr,egate a considerable amount' of' inferior pasture, and farmers were per- , haps reverting to roots until they were able'to lay down pastures of improved . strains of grasses. At the same time, there were, in Taranaki and the Waikato, areas of extraordinary productivity. In the Waikato he was taken ' through a district lying between Hamilton, Te Aroha ; and Taupiri. .In shape this was roughly a triangle with sides ■ twenty miles long, and last season's dairy "output/from the factories situated .in- that triangle was equal to no less'than 21,000 tons of commercial butter. •./..... Mr.-Scott brought back with him a sample of butter churned in,vacuo by a new process now being, tested in New •Zealand. It is claimed that churning in vacuo. greatly improves the texture and "spreadability" of the butter, and enhances its' keeping qualities, and the experiments are being watched with considerable interest. ' '