AUCKLAND WINTER SHOW

Feilding Star, Volume I, Issue 274, 24 May 1907, Page 2

AUCKLAND WINTER SHOW

. • ■ A DAIRY CONFERENCE. [FIB MUMS ASSOCIATION.] Auckland, May. 23. The Dairy Conference held in connection with the Auckland A. and P. Association's winter show, was well attended. . . The Dairy Commissioner, Mr D. Cuddie, delivered an interesting address on "The Dairy Industry." Referring to the quality of the cheese and butter exhibits at the show, he said that, with a few exceptions, it was very good. It was not to he wondered at that those who handled such tutter on the London market were well pleased. (Applause.) In all prbability, however, some of the butters were specially made for the show —made from selected milk, and special care taken in their manufacture. There was a good object-lesson in this specially-prepared butter, and be urged that similar care should be taken with all butter made. The judges' duties were particularly arduous in the butter section, the exhi-. bits being so uniformly good. Although a lot of the produce was of good flavour, there was a large jwntity that was not as good as it should be, due probably to impurities in the milk. There were many influences affecting the flavour of butter. The best way of preventing butter going wrong in flavour was to give strict attention to cleanliness, a rule which lad undoubtedly been neglected in the case of the butter referred to. There was a great improvement in the general quality of creamery butter shipped last season, but it wbuld be a very difficult matter to continue that improvement. Therefore, everyone concerned would require to do their best, and be content with nothing but the best. In his opinion, the time had arrived when it was necessary" for some oombined # effort on the part of dairy farmers in oonnection with the weighing and'testing of the milk of individual members of their herds, so that they could distinguish the profitable from the vl profitable. Associations for this purpose had been formed in Denmark with preat advantage, and the average yield of butter-fat in DenP»ark was 2001 b a year. New Zealand could adopt a similar scheme. Mr J. D. Ritchie, Secretary for Agriculture, informed the conference that, although it had not been definitely decided to carry out a scheme of milk inspection at present, the Government had the matter under serious consideration. The following motion was then carried:—"This conference is of the opinion that the inspection of dairy farms and herds of farmers supplying dairy factories would be calculated to improve the milk supply of the colony, and would be a desirable course to adopt." Dealing at the afternoon sitting with "Contagious Diseases Among Dairy Cattle," Mr C. 8. Reakes, Act-ing-Chief Veterinarian, declared that hundreds of thousands of pounds were lost yearly to New ZealaVd farmers by diseases which could be eradicated by united action. Tuberculosis appeared to be the most serious, and it seemed impossible to treat it medicinally. Experiments were going on in Europe, and there was reasonable hope that within a few years some effective serum treatment would be evolved. Nine-tenths of the tuberculosis prevailing in New Zealand, he declared, was due to rearing calves on separated milk oontaminated^by germs from diseased cows. The skim-milk should be sterilised at the factory, and, getting to bedrock, the infected cow should be got rid of. Dealing with contagious abortion, the lecturer said this disease cost the farmers of the colony £900,000 to £300,000 annually, but it could # be stamped out in three years by simple, inexpensive treatment. As to. mammitis, or contagious inflammation of the udder, no safe and effective cure was known, but the Veterinary Department's officers were carrying out experiments at Wallaceville to discover a method. Is the milking machine a success r was a question asked by Mr William Cole, who answered it emphatically in the affirmative. He said the machine doubled the milking speed, and it had been proved that the output was greater, while, above all. serious difficulty of securing labour for milking was done away .with. Progression in machine milking would be slow, he said, until, manufacturers evolved an inexpensive machine, capable of milking ten cows, for the present machines could not be profitably employed for herds of less than forty.