HOME SEPARATION.

Waipa Post, Volume I, Issue 37, 22 August 1911, Page 4

HOME SEPARATION.

BOTH SIDES OF THE CASE

Speaking at the annual conference of the South Island Dairy Association, Mr D. Cuddie, Dairy Commissioner, had something to say about home separation. Referring to his remarks, a Taranaki writer says he did not go so far as to completely condemn home separation, although he said that if it became general throughout New Zealand he was satisfied that our butter would go down in quality. "He had to admit," continued the writer " that there were some districts where no other form of dairying could be carried on; also that the system was not faulty in itself, though the methods employed in carrying out were very much so. Sometimes the cream was allowed to remain on the farms for three or four days, and naturally when it arrived at the factory it was very sour. That of course, is a trouble which is' easily remedied, and some much stronger argument must be adduced before the admitted advantages of home separation can be relinquished. It is impossible, Mr Cuddie says, to get everyone to take as much care of their milk and cream as they should. That is so, but it applies to the factory system with almost as much force. One careless milk supplier may lower the quality of a factory's output, and there is therefore need for constant watchfulness on the part of managers and directors of factories. Whether the difficulty in this direction would be greater with cream than with milk we cannot say, but there, is so much to be gained by home separation that it must be shown that the results of individual carelessness would be more serious under that system than uader the present before the idea is given up. There is no apparent reason why cream should not be handled carefully on the farm, and delivered daily at the factory ; while a factory manager may surely reject cream that is ' off' with as little or even less than he would milk "in a similar condition. We are not advocating the home separation system, but at the same time we are not prepared to accept Mr Cuddie's remarks at Dunedin as final and conclusive on the subject."