GREAT DAIRYING EXHIBITION

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4309, 19 March 1901, Page 5

GREAT DAIRYING EXHIBITION

\ C OMBINED CONFERENCE AND SHOW. MEETING OF MILK PRODUCERS AND MANUFACTURERS. Following the example of the Otago Agricultural and Pastoral Society, the National Dairy Association is promoting a winter exhibition—with this difference, however, that whereas _ the great Dunedin show includes exhibits of general farm produce and a fat stock show, the National Dairy Association’s exhibition—to be held at Palmerston North under the auspices of the Manawatu and "West Coast Agricultural and Pastoral Association, on July 23rd-26th —will be purely a display of dairying products, and the various descriptions of machinery and appliances connected with the

industry. The feature of the exhibition, of course, will bo exhibits of factory-made butter and cheese, and the conditions

controlling these exhibits, promise .to secure the most valuable competition in dairy products which has yet taken place in the colony. An important condition— raid one'which is new to the colony—has been imported into the present competition. It is this: In place of a factory manager being able to make an entry when he pleases, and of specially prepared butter, from selected milk, carefully made, and packed with

the most fastidious care, -the competing butter is taken from the Homo shipment of the factory’s produce as it Fes in cold storage at the port of shipment, the box or boxes being selected (at a time unknown ho 'the factory) by a- committee. Under the system formerly in vogue it was often found that a maker who was successful in winning competitions was not so successful iu regard to tho quality of tho every-day output of his "factory. The proposed condition has been introduced in order to bestow the award of merit on the maker who shows •superiority of work in his daily practice. The observance of the conditions in regard to the storage of the butter in the Government cool stovcsi and tho judging of tho butter after storage, is, as usual, to be a feature of the butter competition. Tills condition of cold storage, is made in order that the entries may present to the judges something of the condition of New Zealand butter when landed in London. The cl lev.so exhibits will be selected by another committee, appointed by the executive. The cheese will be taken off

the curing-room shelves of the factory on a date .selected by the- executive. .The entry conditions for both tho butter and cheeso are most complete,• and should givci the fullest satisfaction to competitors. Exhibits are to ho invited of all descriptions of dairy factory machinery, butter boxes, cheese crates, binding wire, daily salt, parchment paper, oils, choe-so bandage and caps, milk and cream cans, coolers, aerators, .skim-milk measures, calf and pig meals, testing glassware, testers, and other factory and dairy-farming appliances. Unfortunately, .owing to tho want of a suitable, building—the exhibition is to bo held m the local theatre—dairying machinery will not he able to be shown in motion. In this respect tho exhibition will suffer in comparison with that of Dunodiu, where the annexes to tho Agricultural Hall are excellently adapted for this purpose. It is fully anticipated, however, that the butter competitiou will he very much finer and larger than any that has yet taken’place in the colony. On the other hand, tho exhibition of cheese can hardly be expected to be as great as that yearly shown at Dunedin.

During the progress of the exhibition, which will be open for four days, dairying conferences will be held at Palmerston North. The proposed programme provides that the National Dairy Association (a combination of co-operative factories) will hold its annual meeting and conference on matters directly affecting its interests on tho second day, the annual meeting of the New Zealand Factory Butter and Ohoesemakers’ ..Association, to be followed by a conference (.;i matters ' p articularly concerning the manufacture of dairy produce, being held on the first day. On the third and fourth days a combined conference of the two bodies, in which all dairymen are to be invited to take part, will he held. A smoke concert on the third evening will enable the visiting dairymen to - ’-ub shoulders and become ac-

quainted; at the Ipame time giving them an opportunity of exchanging experiences. Among the subjects to be discussed by the "National Dairy Association, and upon which addresses will he given, are the Hollowing: -—“Best Means of Constructing Milk Sheds and Yards,” "The Conserving and Utilisingof Manure”; “Breeding and: Feeding of Pigs for the Export Bacon and Pork Trade”; “Breeding of Poultry for Export” ; “Best Moans of Improving Dairy Herds”; “Ensdage”; “The Laboui Question on Dairy Farms”; “Improvement of Bush Pastures” ; etc. The makers, at their annual meeting. will deal principally with subjects affecting the" manufacture of butter ami cheese, the quality of the mdk supply, hc. In this they will be materially asserted by the Dairy Commissioner and his staff. , ’ As each cf the annual meetings of the two associations will be confined to the one day. the addresses and discusR’ons more generally affecting the, whole industry wi'l be postponed to the 'general conference, on the third and fourth clays. Excellent as is the scheme outlined—tie work of the secretary of the National Dairy Association, Mr C. it. Beattie—it would have been of a much more comprehensive nature had time and circumstances permitted.; As it is, dairymen mav look forward to what promises to be the irost successful gathering of dairymen and exhibition of dairy produce which has yet taken place in the colony.