SCIENCE IN DAIRYING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19144, 9 October 1925, Page 12

SCIENCE IN DAIRYING.

DR. CILRUTHS ADVICE, j ONE LARGE LABORATORY. USES OF CONCENTRATION. Concentration on one big Dominion laboratory, in which a highly-trained staff! of specialists would have all the facilities' available for research which strong finan- j cial backing would give, is favoured by j Dr. J. A. Qilruth as being a better means of conducting research into the problems ! of the dairy industry than local labora- 1 tones maintained by a comparatively! small circle of fanners with the aid of a Government subsidy. This view was expressed by him in an interview at New Plymouth, " Don't think for a minute that I arc decrying the incentive which has led to the establishment of the laboratory by the farmers in South Taranaki," Dr. Gilruth said. " I am not. But what is going to | happen ? The Waikato will probably set j up a laboratory with the aid of a sub- | sidy, Hawke's Bay may set up another, i and still others may be established in ! other districts. Don't you think that ■ much better results would be accomplished if all these moves were united in one big : joint effort ? Will anyone of them be j able to provide all the facilities required j to do the job properly ? Will it not lead I to dissipation of effort rather than con- j centration " Some people have the idea that milk 1 from different districts is different." Dr. j Gilruth said. " Believe me, a drop of; milk, whether it be from the Bluff or from the North Cape, is just a drop of milk. This is a national matter, not a matter for local effort. Good work will be done at the South Taranaki laboratory, 1 have no doubt, but much better -results would be obtained if all the farmers in New Zealand concentrated on one big laboratory and put up the money that would enable a highly-trained staff to bo employed and that would enable that staff to have the best plant to work with." To such a laboratory farmers, in Dr. Gilruth's opinion, should be, encouraged to pay regular visits and thus obtain some idea of the scientific side of dairying as it affected them. Dr. Gilruth said he did not want the dairy farmers to become scientists. That was unnecessary, he said, but by paying visits to the laboratory they would learn something of the way in which their faults or successes in producing the raw material affected other processes in the turning out of the highest quality produce. The establishment of such a laboratory was a matter for the-farmers themselves, Dr. Gilruth added. It was no use them going to the Government for it, because they had to pay for it in the end. It was the primary producer who created the wealth of the Dominion and it was from him that ail money for enterprises of that nature must come. The Government itself had no money; it had only what the producers produced. The Govenuneat establishment of a laboratory such as he had mentioned would simply mean that the producers were paying indirectly for something which they would be better advised to control and pay for directly.