THE BRITISH DAIRY CONFER

Otago Witness, Issue 2009, 25 August 1892, Page 6

THE BRITISH DAIRY CONFER-

ENCE, 185)2. (Continued.)

Among the various subjects discussed at the conference was the assumed superiority of Continental over British butters, and incidentally the proper means for effecting reform in dairy management were prominently noticed. While in this colony the only doctrines preached arc in support of the factory system and the utter extinction of the homely farmdairy industry, in the United Kingdom there is not the slightest chance of the former superseding the latter. That there are substantial reasons for this was made plain by the straightforward admissions of the best authorities assembled. Professor Long, in reference to Danish butter, said: — "We in this country were now sending into the market from private dairies butter which was much better than the best Danish ware. A Brighton butter merchant had told him that he could sell tons upon tons of the best English butter, but he could not sell Danish butter at all now. . . . Astothe well-trained foreigners to whom Dr Webb had referred, he 3aid this country had done more good and made more progress within the last two or three years than the foreigners had made within the last 20 years. In some countries, it was true, the foreigners were doing better work than we were, because they were working on a system which induced a more thorough training. In Switzerland, for insfcanco, the student who went to learn chcesemaking at a dairy institute was required to remain for six months, so that he might not go away from that institute till he had a thorough knowledge of the work, whereas in England they could go away in a week, and represent themselves as having been trained at that school. The Dairy Association, however, were moving in tho right direction, and were making their examinations more stringent, so as to insure that the holders of their diplomas were thoroughly well grounded in dairy science. He believed the farmer could make a better market for himself than he could by sending his milk to the factory. There should be factories for the small farmers who were not able to make their own markets, but these should be co-operative factories. Farm butter had always beaten factory butter, and they could not make such good butter or cheese at a factory as could be done in a farmhouse at a farm dairy." Mr F. J. Lloyd, a well-known authority, said they should not let it go forth that a superior cheese could be made in a factory to that which could be made in a farm dairy. He would defy any maker in the world who could turn out the best cheese in a dairy, to go into a factory and do the same. The milk in a factory came from numbers of farms, and each farmer supplied milk of different quality, and in the manufacturing of cheese there were slight variations of quality which neither the chemist nor the sense of taste or smell could detect. The least taint in the milk of one contractor would prevent the cheese or butter from being good.

It was not disputed that the factories established had effected many reforms in dairy management, and where conducted on the co-operative principle had greatly benefited owners of small herds of dairy cows, or that in a great measure the factory management could place tho butter • -on the. market to greater advantage. Mr Carrick, Haydon bridge, an experienced dairy f aimer, said " there had been too much preaching up of Danish butter to the detriment of their own produce in the past, and there was no question that they could produce better butter in these countries than any Danish butter ; but he held that co-operation by means of the factory system was tho best method of putting their produce on the market. It was unfortunately the fact that with many of the farmers and small producers the marketing of butter was simply a process of barter, as they took in their butter to the grocer from whom they got their goods and took groceries in exchange for it, and in that way the grocer could not find fault with any inferior samples so long as the producers took their groceries from him."

Regarding the making of butter, and in reference to the question whether it should be washed or not, Professor Long stated that although he had persistently advocated the washing of butter in the granular stage, "he could not shut his eyes to the fact that the Danish butter was not washed at all " ; bub as the N.B. Agriculturist remarks : '• He might have added that most of the butter made at the Irish factories supervised by Canon Bagot is not washed either. Doubtless great care is taken both by the Danish makers and the Irish factory operatives to get the casein extracted as thoroughly aa possible from the butter by means of the butterworker, but the fact remains that butter which has not been washed in tho granular stago does not keep so well as butter that has been washed, and the Danish, which is an unwashed butter, does not keep well, as anyone may find out by a simple test."

During tho sittings of the conference, a box was placed for the reception of queries concering dairy farming, and on the second day of the meeting tho chairman, Colonel Curtis Hayward intimated that several written questions had been placed iv the question box, and these would be replied to first. The first question was : What are the advantages to be derived from the use of the cream separator ? He would answer that in a word by saying that by means of the cream separator you could get the butter fat more completely extracted from the milk, and had less trouble with the milk. The second question was : Would the advantages of a cream separator warrant an ordinary Westmorland farmer purchasing one if he were only niilking 12 or 14 cows? He would reply, "Certainly, for the dream separator would give lib of butter per cow per week more than could be obtained by any other system of cream extraction. Another advantage was that when you used the cream separator you could practically feed the cows on anythingyou pleased without fear of the butter being tasted. Turnips, for instance, gave a flavour to the butter when the cream was extracted from the milk in standing vessels; but when the cream was separated from the milk, as was done in his (the speaker's) own case, there was never the slightest suspicion of turnip flavour among the butter,"— [lf by the separator the "turnip

flavour " is suppressed, what about tho aromA and nutty flavour so prized by epicures in prime homestead made butters ? Ed. OW 1 Another question asked was : Can you irfre evidence fronxexperience to show that separated m -^ = 1S ter f ?f calves than ordinary skim milk? The gallant colonel had evidently forgotten,the superior merits of separated milk for calf-rearing when he was enumerating the advantages of the cream separator, but h% hastened to supply this omission by assuring them that all who had tried both kinds of milk were fully convinced as to the feeding value of separated milk m comparison with skim milk. The colonel's dicta here will certainly not gain credence, and there is that lib of butter per week per cow more will be obtained by using the separator than by setting and skimming the milk. Accordingly the separated milk is so much tho poorer in butter fat, an essential of calf food, or its equivalent in linseed or other vegetable oils Another question answered by the colonel (who, by the way, 13 a dairy farmer on a large scale) was : How long should cream be kept before being churned? To this his reply was that cream would be in the best form for churning after standing for 34- hours or thereby. For himself, however, he preferred to follow the Dutch practice of artificial souring, and in the afternoon of every day ho added a little sour skimmed milk or butter-milk to the cream he was to churn next morning. In that way he got all his cream ab one uniform decree of ripeness.

As Illustrative of the influence of food on tho flesh and products of animals, Mr Alcebrock, secretary of tho Nottinghamshire Dairy Farmers' Association, instanced a somewhat remarkable case where a farmer bought a lot of rancul cotton cake for manure, and the cattle ate a lot of ifc, with the result that when they were fattened, a good while afterwards, the flesh was found to be so rank in the taste that there was great difficulty in getting rid of it. Several of these animals were kept for a twelvemonth afterwards, and even then their flesh when slaughtered gave forth a most disagreeable stench.