CHEESE-MAKING

Hawera Star, Volume L, 7 February 1931, Page 4

CHEESE-MAKING

(To the Editor A

Sir, —i have read with much interest the letters in your issues of 2nd and 3rd inst. referring to, my comments. What is the use of beating round the bush? Face facts and try and overcome the sources of the present collapse in the dairy trade. I see in a recent Auckland paper that some factories are changing over to butter. Look out, or you will have your collapse there next. L wish to point out in all fairness to Mr Vcale that he is in no way to blame for my criticism. He s'ceims to be the lone voice calling in the wilderness, and there are none so deaf as those that will not hear. r/ . , \ll tnis nonsense about New Zealand climate and conditions is ridiculous. The sooner tne industry faces a twice a day delivery of milk the better. You have no hope of making good cheese delivering milk 12 hours after milking at the factory. You will not make o-ood cheese, however good a cheesemaker you are, if ,you contaminate it with a! bad starter. When the writer who compares pig scalding with tho hoop scalding has seen as much cheesemaking iu other parts of the world, or made as many different kinds, as X have, he will know at a glance what the idea of the hot water was—and it was wroiig. A rind was being put on a cheese full of white whey. Do you wonder your cheese collapses and gets full of holes? I saw the whey tested; I waited purposely to see it. I have made cheese from. Shorthorn,. Ayrshire, Holstein ,and mixed herds with Jersey in them. ' I admit you have difficulties. as you have gone mad on fat production—almost grease production now—but at the same time, surely something could be done to improve matters. ... One writer considers my criticism is a slur and unwanted. That’s just it, you do not want to learn. . You hope Mr Veale or some other scientist will come along with some magic wand and Taranaki cheese will take the world by Storm and Teturn about 2/ a lb. for tho farmer. It would be far better to experiment with a vat or two of milk and get a better method of production. If you can get increased prices in the long run it will pay you, but at the moment managers are afraid to take sharp steps to stop dirty milk. They use a culture because it’s supposed to be the thing to do, and good luck to it if it s .a . pure starter. It doesn't get much chance to do its work, poor thing, for from then on, it is “time-table cheese. Even the method of hooping that I saw left a lot tu be desired, but the mauager has his directors ou one side and his suppliers ou the other. I do not for one instant suggest I am perfect, and I can assure you a position to instruct or advise never entered my head. _ , After I left Hawera I met a London produce-merchant, and we discussed the present position of dairy produce, in London, and Relieve me, no criticism or no help should be unwanted, that will help to produce better qualities of your product. Your country is dependin!g on. you; try your best not to fail it. No explanation or excuse does away with tho shaving question, and I distinctly stated I did not suggest the woi’kers were not clean. My opinion ofmy letter being sent to the dairy managers is that nothing would have re-, suited from it. A policy of drift and - self-satisfaction seems to content some people. No amount of sarcasm about my advice to the great body of the New Zealand Dairy Association can overcome the fact of 53/- on the London market. When Arapuni collapsed, what a.howl about “expert advice from abroad!” . Why not try it on your cheese-making? Get experts from abroad. You win only appreciate it if you have to pay enormous fees for it.—l am, etc., MARGARET T. HARRISON, < N.D.D., B.D.F.A.D.