THE MILK COUNCIL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22390, 9 April 1936, Page 15

THE MILK COUNCIL

Sir, —In reading the report of the above council one notices throughout a vein of "increases." First the council wants another id per gal. to pay expenses, and the vendor wants Jd to id per quart—in fact he has been promised id per quart, which all promises a further rise in our milk prices, in all probability to 6d per quart. The council claims to have raised tho standard of our milk, and if this is so then there has been a lot of reallv_ poor milk. But I do not think this is the case. The Health Department, which has heretofore looked after our milk, would not have allowed it to obtain. As a matter of fact the test has been reduced to accommodate the poorer milk, and the standard of the richer milk brought down to the level of the poorer. I know that a few years ago one obtained on a tumbler of milk standing for an hour, from Jin. to 2'n. of cream. The same milk supply today under the same conditions only produces iin. of cream, and this is from a producer-vendor. In a rich milk producing district like this the test of 3.5 for one's milk is a very low one. and many butter factories would give one a blister if one persisted in supplying so low a testing milk. My milk, produced from a mixed herd on secondclass land, never tested below 4.25, and many in the district had cent test during the years 1917-22 in Taranaki, on the poor side along the coast. So it would seem that although the council may have standardised our milk it has done so by reducing the richer to the level of the poorer instead of tho reverse. U.M.P.