THE PERFECT DAIRY.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLI, Issue 177, 29 July 1907, Page 7

THE PERFECT DAIRY.

The Daily Express reports a strikingly successful campaign for pur© milk at Maidstone. Up to four years ago the milk supply of that Kentish town was in a notoriously evil condition. Then a few young men of the county, seeking a profitable investment, began to buy up dairies and experiment in the purification of milk, until they secured nearly the whole of the business in the town, and spent £4000 on experiments alone. They made an ii - spection oL the dairy farms in the neighbourhood, and made contracts with five of them, under the most> stringent conditions eyer put into such contracts. In the event of disease among the cows cr in the vendor's family, the purchaser must be at once informed, and in such an event, or if the vendor's water supply is condemned, the purchaser has the right to terminate the contract at once. Milking sheds must be kept as clean as possible, and yards covered with some hard material. In one dairy under tho old conditions milk sufficient to supply 2000 families was stored in a room fi £ teen by four feet, with a drain opening into it. The new central dairy, covering a quarter of an acre of land, is described by experts as far and away the most perfect in the country. But the greatest triumph of the entrp'rising young men is the system of purification. They are said to have invented, without sterilisation or the use of preservatives, a method of. killing the germs in the.milk,'-.and making it keep long after other milk turns sour. One result of the enterpriser has been a fall in the rate of infantile mortality from 132 per 1000 in 1901 t0.107 in 1906, the average rate for England and Wales being 133, and the average for the years 1896-1906 in Maidstone 126. A chance sample of the milk was found to be 20 per cent, above the standard. The men who have brought about the revolution say they are ready to go into any town in England and organise its milk supply on similar lines, and the Daily Express, declares that they have shown that municipalisation ol the milk supply is not necessary.