BUTTER FLAVOURS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22461, 3 July 1936, Page 18

BUTTER FLAVOURS

EFFECT OF GRASS MIXTURE

BY PAN The influence of feed upon the flavour of dairy products, particularly butter, has been vaguely recognised, but little has been done to ascertain how far that influence extends. In previous articles 1 have stressed the importance of this factor and suggested experiments to throw further light upon it. Having regard to earlier production methods, when our butter possessed an attractive natural flavour, it is surely worth while exploring this promising avenue to greater lengths. That there is a strong body of lay opinion favouring a more natural method of growing Eastures than is practised to-day is well nown. It ranges from oiTr South Island to Great Britain and other countries overseas. The opinion of theso men is that the continual top dressing of pastures with inorganic manures is not the best way to grow pastures that will produce the best beef animals or choicest-flavoured dairy products. Scientific research has now been brought to bear upon this subject and tho following extract from a letter written by Sir H. Howard the famous botanist to a friend in New Zealand is of interest:

" Under grass the soil dies slowly, and the plant is unable to use the soil properly. Hence the need for artiiieials, salt licks, etc. The need for these things is not altogether due to mineral deficiency, but to pot-hound soil, lor the old grass cannot use the soil. With , your heavy stocking, you will be able ■ to scrap a lot of your artificials, salt licks, etc., providing you plough up i ! the land every three or four years and ! go in for temporary pastures as well. ; The mistake is to go in for permanent I grass. The value of new grass raised | on land in which the old grass has been : converted into humus, i.e., oxidised is I really an aeration problem .... Grass i in tho tropics only does well if the land I is cultivated and manured. This is I true of grass everywhere, but the lesson j is obscured by the fact that in Great I Britain, New Zealand, etc., grass of j a kind will grow anywhere and anyI how. What you want for your animals |is grass worth eating, with all the | nourishment, minerals etc. you can ! pack into it. Animals need less of such ; grass to satisfy themselves .... There ! is only one principle in agriculture, viz. I to introduce sunlight into a crop, or into the stomach of some animal by means of the crop. All the rest is detail. To do this effectively, the sunlight must be fully used, which in turn is only possible if tho grass and soil come into gear properly .... Insects and fungi are part of the creation for keeping agriculture up to the m'arlc. Hence they must not bo killed, otherwise the problem is destroyed,' not solved. Plants properly grown are not attacked." Thus an eminent scientist con- J firms the opinions of thoughtful and observant laymen, and in addition gives reasons for his conclusions. These reasons are convincing in that they agreo with tho experience of earlier dairying methods in this country. Also they I throw light upon many of the troubles which afflict our dairy farmers to-day. Diseases of dairy cows, such as abortion, sterility, acute mamniifis infection and many others may be due—almost entirely —to some deficiency of constitu- | onfs forming tljo pasture plants. So with the flavour of milk and cream. May not tho present noticeable flatness in these products and the butter made from them be due to tho same cause? In our methods of grassland farming, are we working in accordance with tho one principle in agriculture, which, according to Sir H. Howard is " to introduce sunlight into a crop, or into the stomach of some animal by means of the crop?"