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Taranaki Daily News, 15 August 1931, Page 8

A PRACTICAL EXPERIMENT. The decision of the Lowgarth Dairy Company to conduct an experiment into the relative values of high and low testing milk for cheese-making is extremely interesting. It is not likely that it will provide the last word in that very controversial matter, but it shows that the dairy farmers, of Taranaki are willing to do all that is in their power to improve cheese manufacture. The experiment will be watched very closely, and the fact that it will be carried out under normal factory conditions will give it a value for demonstration purposes to other factory managers and suppliers. In his address to the recent National Dairy Conference Professor Riddet pointed out that before laboratory conclusions could be accepted by the industry it was essential they be tried out on a commercial scale of operation. In other words, factory tests must follow laboratory conclusions. Ever since Mr. P. O. Veale’s experiments with milk for cheese-making in what are now known as the Tokaora tests the question of whether high or low testing milk is essential or even desirable for the manufacture of the best quality cheese has been one demanding an authoritative reply. It is certainly one that is of vast importance to the dairy industry and has raised many subsidiary inquiries, which have tended to obscure the main point at issue. The Lowgarth experiment should do something in the desired direction, the more so because it has the backing of the suppliers themselves. Whatever the opinions in regard to high and low testing milk there is unanimity in regard to milk supply in one respect. It is that if it were considerably improved in condition on arrival at the factory many of the cheese-makers’ problems would disappear. Presumably quality as well as butter-fat content will be included in the Lowgarth investigation, the result of which can hardly fail to prove of benefit to the industry as a whole.