FARM AND STATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 1967, 5 November 1891, Page 6

FARM AND STATION.

TBE SYNOD AND THE DAIRY INDUSTRY.

At the recent discussion in the Presbyterian Synod upon Sunday observance at dairy factories, the Key. Dr Dunlop, whose comparatively recent appointment as head of the Divinity School entitles us to accredit him with the full confidence of the Synod on religious questions, remarked that "he felt that the Synod would do more harm than good by engaging in a debate on matters of that kind, about which members possessed singularly little practical knowledge or experience." But for this sensible contribution to a discussion, which we must say was much below the average of local synodical debates both in matter and in tone, we should not venture so far out of our depth as to attempt a comparison in morality between the particular form of "Sabbathbreaking" involved in Sunday dairying, and other forms of work on the day of rest which must be at least equally familiar to members of the Synod. We observe, moreover, that Dr Dunlop's utterance was received with "applause," which entitled us to conclude that he spoke the sentiments of a good many. As we are greatly interested in the maintenance of a full measure of prosperity among the dairy factories (which, of course, means a corresponding degree of profit to the farmers) we may be permitted to remark that so long as there is a choice of evils to attack in respect of non-observance of Sunday, the lower down on the order paper the dairy factories are placed, the better. Nature, which makes her arrangements independently of creeds, has ordained that the sustenance of calves, babies, and other mammalian immaturities should be forthcoming in the regular way at the rate of seven days per week. In the case of cows, Nature, assisted by the breeder's art, has provided a superfluity, available to civilised man for future instead of present consumption — surely one of the blessings for which Synods are specially charged to secure the returning of thanks. The chemical constitution of milk, moreover, and its peculiar susceptibilities in various respects, are such as to have long ago impressed upon observant experimenters the necessity of handling it in a particular way ; and if the art and industry of dairying are to be main tamed in their full efficiency, that way must be followed, and followed without intermission. We should like to impress this fact strongly, as Dr Dunlop (a practical expert in dairying, as he claims) has already done, upon the Synod. We are quite sure that those members who sought, through impressing the religious susceptibilities of pious farmers, to seriously impair their income from the sale of milk, did so from the best of motives, and with a desire to do their duty. But divines who polish off the difficulties by merely telling a farmer to " put bis milk in a river " from Saturday to Monday, betray an utter ignorance of the conditions nine-tenths of our farmers have to meet : while those who are at the trouble of explaining that "it is impossible to keep the Sabbath without using the separator," at best only mystify the reader, and at worst may move him to irreverent mirth.