TESTING OF BUTTER

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 17155, 4 October 1926, Page 11

TESTING OF BUTTER

DIFFERENT RESULTS AN EXPLANATION MADE (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. Owing to the omission of the statement of Mr. Adams, Crown Prosecutor, in a ease at Dunedin in which the Wai-t-aid Dairy Company was-prosecuted on a charge of selling butter containing more than 16. per cent, of water, a reflection is cast on the work of the analyst at the Dominion laboratory. Mr. Barrowclough, for the defence, had stated that there must have been confusion in reference jo the number of samples at the Dominion laboratory. This is not so. \ Mr. Adams' statement, which was not telegraphed, was as follows: "It; was clear that the butter did have;. a higher moisture content. On a third sample being tested the result bore out. the figures of the Dominion analyst. The result is conclusive that, there was evidently something -wrong with Mr. Carter's analysis. Mr. Carter is an analyst at: Dunedin University." The Waittiki Dairy Company was proceeded'hgainst by the Depart men I of Health on a charge of selling butter -containing more than;l6 per cent, of water.' At the first hearing two analysts -engaged could not agree and were later sent to make their tests together. The,result of the second test was the. same, as that.of.the analyst who stated that the water content was less than 10 per cent. Ml*. BaiTowelougli, for the defendants, said that the two analysts were unable to say that there had been no change in-the constitution of the third sample of butter, which had been kept, for three, months and had become rancid.