CHEESE QUALITY.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 August 1930, Page 15

CHEESE QUALITY.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —-A very sensible letter appeared in your columns to-day, written by “Old Farmer,” re. the quality of cheese. He just about hits the nail squarely on the head, only he does not go far enough. Two or three years ago Mr. Veale, our Taranaki scientist, carried out most exhaustive tests at Hawera in the endeavour to find out what kind of milk was most suitable for cheesemaking. The result was.,a straight-out win for the lower testing milk. To-day, three years or so later, everyone is blaming everyone else for the terrible mess we are in, but poor old “cookie” is getting the lion’s share of the blame, as usual, we are told that we will have to do this, that and the other, everything on the place in future is to be inspected, and it is even said that the inspectors will lecture to the cows and tell them how necessary it is to be good, and behave themselves while in the yards and shed. And yet, 20 and 30 years ago there were no scientists employed, no inspectors pestering around, sniffing everywhere on the . place, and still we were making infinitely: better cheese than we are today. Were our cheesemakers-better than they . are to-day ? I do not think, so. No, I am afraid-the almighty little Jersey is the real trouble. Year after year the. average test is rising, and year after year the quality of our cheese is going back, and the pity of it all is we can hope for no improvement until some of our directors with a little extra courage in them will insist on a different system of payment, and pay for solids and butterfat, instead of butterfat alone. Mr. Veale, if I remember rightly, suggested 1 three different methods of pay/ment, so surely, if only in justice to breeders of- the. lower testing and;more suitable cattle,-who have been so-badly 1 -rbbbed : long • enough, one of these ; could be adopted. Ask any factory manager; which ; kind •,of milk he prefers for cheesemaking, and the answer is always, the same, in favour of the lower-testing milk. As “Old Farmer” points out, when the,sheep farmers of this country were told a few years ago that Romneys and Lincolns were unsuitable for the fat lamb trade in England, they did ; not shuffle, dodge and sidestep, and finally come a cropper, as our breeders of hightesting cattle have done to-day, but immediately took the experts’ advice and changed over to the. Southdown -Romney cross, with the result that to-day oui’ fat lamb on the London market stands second to none in the world. So. it should be with our cheese, which, however, is getting worse and harder to sell as time goes on. Yes, the English cheesemakers can beat us to the tpne ■ of something like 20s. per cwt., and the Shorthorns still predominate there, and always will do so; a Jersey is scarcely ever seen. I hold no brief for any breed, but ' surely we should 'be broadminded enough to heed what our scientist and other notable authorities have to say, and gradually get back to the lowertesting breeds. Of course, this cannot be done in a day, or even a year, but there is no sign of it being done yet, and, worse still, many of those that have Holstein, Milking Shorthorn and Ayrshire herds are now getting Jerseys simply because they are “fed-up” with carry- . ing the other fellow any longer. Truly,. the position is a most serious one under the present condition of affairs.—l am, etc.,

ANOTHER OLD FARMER.