THE BATTLE OF THE BREEDS.

Southland Times, Issue 21606, 19 January 1932, Page 3

THE BATTLE OF THE BREEDS.

To the Editor. Sir, —I cannot understand Mr Kalaugher and his -side-stepping methods, nor his attitude of altering statements to suit himself. Let me put myself on side regarding those letters. Mr Kalaugher, in his last letter, insinuates that I will not accept Mr Veale’s point blank contradictions. No such thing, sir! I refuse accept Mr Kalaugher’s statement. Mr Kalaugher in your issue of September 28, writes: “I have before me copies of the letters to Mr Veale and his reply.” . At the Invercargill Show (I have been told) Mr Kalaugher stated that he had copies of all the correspondence in his Auckland office. And yet he states that I by adopting this most unreasonable attitude have placed myself beyond the pale of the accepted standards of journalism. Sir, I leave the question to your readers to decide for themselves.

Mr Kalaugher refuses to accept the statement of Mr Archer, backed up by Messrs Moreland and Sons’ confirmation, regarding the cheese sent to the English Exhibition. He refused to accept my statement which I was prepared to substantiate regarding the average butter-fat contents of Brown Swiss milk, and also that the late Dr. Badcock stated that butterfat in cheese had a value of 6.6 times that of solids not fat.

I looked this up last time I was in Invercargill and find the following in Van Slyke and Price’s book on cheese Page 85. Dr. Badcock in his proposed method gives to milk fat a value of 6.6 as compared with a value of 1-0 for the solids not fat. On page 79 of the same book I noticed: “The cheese made from the richer milk is of more excellent quality and has a higher commercial value. Confirmation of this, is given in the bulletin recently issued by the British Ministry of Agriculture in which it states that British cheese manufacturers must improve the quality of their cheese by the incorporation of more butterfat.” Whilst on cheese quality I remember the answers given by Professor Reddell, of the Massey College. He stated that the reason Canadian cheese realised a higher price on the English market was because it was more matured and that New Zealand cheese) owing to its higher fat contents was better value than Canadian.

Recently the High Commissioner of Canada when addressing a meeting of dairymen stated that unless more care was taken with the manufacture of full cheese the Government would have to seriously consider prohibiting its export. Not long ago at a meeting which I attended a speaker, prominent in the dairying industry, told us that there was any amount of trouble in Canada regarxiing the quality of their cheese but that there they kept these things quiet and not as in New Zealand shouted them from the house tops. In recent American farm papers I notice that the fluid milk market is demanding that milk shall test higher than 3.5 per cent, butterfat. Some of the distributors are testing their suppliers’ cows free and asking them to get rid of the low tester as they will not accept milk testing below 3.5. Surely, rir, this must be a. nasty knock to the Black and White water tanks. When Mr Kalaugher has digested the above I intend to give him just a few more reasons why the cattle producing yellow milk are superior to the white milk producers.—l am, etc., JNO. BOURCHIER.