NOTE AND COMMENT

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1510, 7 February 1901, Page 51

NOTE AND COMMENT

Fishiness in butter is likely to prove the most important question the dairy producers of the colony have to face. Its cause, even with all* the scientific knowledge which has been brought tc bear on the. subject of dairy bacteriology of late years, is still surrounded by mystery. Even the particular stage at which the deleterious bacteria are introduced into the butter is unknown, though leading dairying chemists unanimously agree that the bacteria gain an en-, trance with the dirt which always find its way into milk, generally at a very early stage after it is drawn from the cow. The Danes —those great leaders in addanced dairying methods—have proved that, dirt is the cause of fishiness, for as soon as stringent measures in regard to cleanliness were enforced, from the milking shed to the butter factory, fishiness disappeared from Danish butter.

Dairying teachers in Australia generally admit the dirt theory, and several bacteriologists have been attempting to isolate the particular germ which produces the flavour known in the London trade as fishy. The only Australian investigator who has up to the present time made any noteworthy discovery in connection with the trouble is Dr Cherry, the well-known Melbourne bacteriologist. Dr Cherry accompanied a shipment of Victorian, butter to London, on beha 1 ? of the Victorian Department of Agriculture, with the object, among other things, of tracing the fishy flavour. From several boxes of butter in tlie shipment Dr Cherry isolated the distinguishing bacteria, and brought them to Melbourne for investigation. As a result of his research he gave it as his opinion that the germ which caused the objectionable flavour was trimethylamin (which, by the way, gives the flavour to herring brine), a germ which has the remarkable property —as Dr Cherry proved—of developing below freezing point-.

To persons having a knowledge of the colonial butter industry the importance of the latter statement is very great. If, therefore, Dr Cherry’s statement he correct the freezing of butter merely stops the development of all useful bacteria and only some of the harmful speoies, so that while these different species are dormant, the trimethylamin germ—allowed free scope to develop by reason of the other species being withheld from activity—is daily* increasing, until, by the time the butter is deposited in London it has obtained full possession of the butter, which is forthwith condemned as unsaleable. Should the triinethylamih theory prove to be correct the question of combating the “fishy” difficulty, is grave indeed.

The investigations of Mr O’Gallaghan, referred to in a recent cable, will, it is hoped!, throw fresh light on the subject. The Government Bacteriologist in this colony, Mr J. A. Gilruth, in the odd moments ee has been enabled to snatch from his more important duties for dairying investigations, has proved the remarkable powers of resistance to cold possessed by a species of bacteria he isolated from “off” flavoured butter, but he has not had an opportunity to properly investigate a true case of fishiness. Recently the Dairy Commissioner, Mr J. A. Kinsella, had some samples of fishy butter sent out by the Produce Commissioner in London, with the object of having a bacteriological examination made by Mr Gilruth, but that was prevented by Mr Gilruth’s visit to England. On the latter’s return, however, it is to he hoped the question of fishiness will be thoroughly investigated. For. the sake of the good name of the colony’s butter it is imperative that it should be.