THE DAIRY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1321, 24 June 1897, Page 5

THE DAIRY.

SKifMNGS.

A good point in a dairy cow is to have the milking habit well established.

An expert says that popular taste does not require as much salt in butter as formerly.

The cow likes regularity, and whon the regular routine of her life is disturbed she resents it by giving less milk. She is not very particular whether she has three meals a day or two, but she wants what she does have regularly.

Bacteria (says a writer in the Australasian), are not all harmful. Some of therm further certain processes of nature, buc agreat majority of them are very injurious? in their behaviour. Their numbers area sometimes incredible. Under dirty coouditions 160,000 have been known to fa T JL into a milk pail per minute. Tbesa iXiay come from the milk left in the teat; o'i the cow while being milked, the and clothes of the milker, and from O" x q milk pail and other vessels being insv'diciently cleansed; atmosphere where Vje cow is milked, and where the niiD' v is subsequently kept both in the ape' a air and in the cowshefl. All this is aVready known by skilful dairy hands, w'ao are consequently extremely careful : ta their dealing with milk ; but it is humi'iiatmg to know that many do not practise such cleanly habits, and then they affect to be surprised 1 , when their butter becoraes rancid or their cheese bitter.

Irish co-operation "nas done wonders for the farmers of the Green Isle, and the efforts of the Hon Horace Plunkeit, M.P., have probably dox\e more to allay discontent than all t,he Land Courts and amended land laws put together. Although his association, only began itsr labours three years ago,, Mr Plunkett can boast of having originated 56 dairy societies, 8 branches of the central society, 10 agricultural societies, and one bank. The creameries have done marvels, and the turnover has increased from in 1895 _ to ,£40,000 in 1896. These are genuine creameries ; the separated milk isreturned to the fare jers ; the quality of thebutter is vastly irniproved in the process ofmanufacture; and. an impetus given to l trade to which Ireland was too long a* stranger.

" One of the reasons," remarks an HUng. i lish journal, " why we are supposed to get so much of orr butter from abroad is that foreign butter is so pure, and no doubt when our neighbours do like to send us good butter they can do so. But a shorttime ago the Board of Trade determined! to examine into these foreign butters, and requested the Board of Customs to instruct their analyst to test the imported! article. This has been done, and it has been found that the Germans and Dutch are the worst offenders In the matter of adulterating butter. Out of 220 samples from Holland, 55 were adulterated, and out of 125 from Germany 37, thus confirming the suspicions that had been entertained for some time as to the operations of the Hamburg butter factories. Russia, Denmark and Norway have also been found out in the adulterating game, but we are glad to know that the colonies have proved themselves quite honest, though Canada was subjected to 39 tests, Australia to 53 and New Zealand to 18. The, moral of this of course is that if we mustfbuy butter from abroad, let us buy it fromv our colonies."