MILK TESTING.

Waikato Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 3486, 1 November 1894, Page 5

MILK TESTING.

| We are given to understand that complaints were very general amongst the milk suppliers to the Hamilton Creamery onl Monday last when the table of percentages was posted up. These ahuwed a general falling off, and suppliers whose milk had been giving 3.4, 3.6, and*-3.8 of butter fat were shown by the table to have dropped down as low as 30. The cause for such a general and serious drop is hard to find, Last year when supplierscomplainedof the low percentages with which they were credited, the poverty of the milk was attributed to the wet season we experienced, but in view of the long spell of diy weather prevailing up to Tuesday last, such cannot be brought forward as the cause, this year, for if the reason given last. year was a correct one, then the milk this season should have been richer than usual, on account of the dry weather. The testing of the milk will, we fear, be a fruitful cause of dissatisfaction between the suppliers and the creamery proprietors ( until the former appoint a representative to act with the company's analyst in testing the milk, for no matter how impartial the analyst employed by Messre Reynolds and Co\ may be, a supplier, the price of whose milk is reduced a halfpenny or over per gallon, would be more prone to attribute the cause to unfairness on the part of the firm or their representative than to the poverty of his milk. If the milk suppliers were to employ an expert to assist: in the testing of the milk, we believe Messrs Reynolds and Col would be only too I happy to hear of such an appointment being j made. That the testing of milk is a bone of contention between milk suppliers and crear mery proprietors in other districts than the! Waikato the following will'show:—"l understand," writes a correspondent of the Leader from Cobram, " that it is intended by the Lancetield Dairy Company, to pay for mijkby the result'system. Is the result reliable ? A good many suppliers have grave doubts. For instance, the experience recently of a farmer named Williams, residing at Invergbrdon, has served to throw doubt upon the correctness of the tests, \\hen the creamery in the district named started, milk was paid for at\per gallon, regardless of quality, but since the payment by result system some of the'suppliers have received such low prices that they feel inclined to discontinue delivery, as low as IJd per gallon having been paid in a number.of cases. Williams a few .weeks ago arranged to deliver milk on four days a week only, and skim the milk on the other three days for butter-making at home, This was done, and the skitr. milk was mixed with the fresh milk. .The manager was aware of what was being done, but as his company was paying by results, he could offer no objection to the course being followed. The sequel shows, however, that owing to a system which is regarded locally as very faulty the supplier lost licfcle er nothing in a financial sense by this process of skimming; the price per gallon he receives for his milk is now, and has'been since the new method was adopted, equal to that paid to many other suppliers, and higher than that received by a few, aud all the suppliers referred to; with the exception of Williams, have been 1 delivering milk just as ic has been taken from the cows. "Williams is himself non-plussed at the result, and he relates the facts above set forth by way of illustrating that there is at least room to doubt the accuracy of the testing method now in vogue. At any rate the matter requires looking into." V