Untitled

Otago Witness, Issue 2804, 11 December 1907, Page 6

THE AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT.

The information which we are enabled to publish this week with reference to the proposals of the Department of Agriculture for the better supervision of the export trade in daily produce and frozen meat will tend to strengthen the impression that the administration of the Department will be conducted upon the xnost progressive linc^ under the present management. Mr M'Xab i<* himself a fanner who has fully recognised that the old rule-of-thumb methods, while they were *evvioeablp enough in the past, mu->t be discarded in these days of strenuous competition, and that, if New Zealand products are to continue worthily to hold their own alongside those of other countries that

contend with them for the favour of the buyers and consumers at Home, it is necessary that every care shall be taken to eliminate as far as possible the factors which contain in them potential clangers to the successful expansion of the colonial industry. And the farming community as a whole cannot have failed to observe that the Minister is determined that the administration of the Department he controls shall, to such extent as is practicable, be ordered to effect the permanent advancement of the trade of -the Dominion in dairy produce and frozen meat. Already, through the existence of the system of grading of dairy produce at the ports of shipment, much is done by Gove+nrneut agency to secure that there shall be that uniformity of quality of exports which is essential to the profitable marketing of the commodities affected. Generally speaking, it is officially reported, the arrangements for the shipment of butter and cheese from the various grading ports rest on a satisfactory basis. Moreover, the provision hat is made on the ocean-going teamers for the treatment of butter ?argoes on the voyage from New Zealand to Great Britain is so complete as to be conducive to the placing of the nroduct on the London market in condition equal, or practically equal, to that which it possessed "when it left the c actory. That defects do manifest themcelves in dairy produce upon its arrival m England is, on the other hand, not to be doubted. But the cause of this has now been traced by the Department to the dairies themselves and to the filthy surroundings of some of them, and, it having been ascertained wherethe source of the mischief lies, the Minister is instituting measures to apply the needed remedy. The appointment of a staff of dairy supervisoi's, a number of whom were recently selected, is calculated to bring about tho cure that is required so far as want of cleanliness in the byres is concerned, and clearly in the good results of this step the householder in New Zealand will share. Again, tho enactment of the Butter Export Bill will supply the Depa-rtment with the machinery to prevent the exportation of butter containing a quantity of moisture in excess of the limit allowed by the Imperial Act, the presence in the article of more than 16 per cent, of water being regarded as another probable cause of the development of a " fishy " flavour in the butter after its arrival In the Mother Country. But the Department is not content with an effort to Improve the conditions under which the milk is produced that is sent to the factories for manufacture into butter and with the passage of legisla^ tion to compel the reduction of the proportion of moisture in butter for export to the limit which is prescribed in the Imperial law. A distinctly forward movement is involved in the proposal, to which effect is to be given almost immediately, that contemplates that members! of the grading staff shall visit London in turn with the view of ascertaining the precise nature of the changes undergone by the produce in course of transit. It cannot he pretended that the outcome of this decision on the part of the Minister will not be of benefit to the industry. The value- of the services of the departmental officers will be materially enhanced by the knowledge and experience they will acquire in London, and the ability of the Department to guide tlie producers satisfactorily in respect of the methods which they should adopt will certainly be increased through the presence of a competent official, representing its interests, in England who will be In direct and intimate touch with the head of the staff in New Zealand. It is designed further that the system of inspection in London will be extended to shipments of frozen meat as well as to cargoes of dairy produce. It may be said unreservedly that the modest expenditure which the adoption of this step will entail will be much more than

repaid if it has thp result of establishinnr on a '•till firmer basiv than that which they now occupy two branches of our export trnde of such imraemp importance as tho«e of frozen meat and dairy produce.