BRITISH MILK BILL AND TUBERCULOSIS ORDER.

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume VI, Issue 5, 15 May 1913, Page 518

BRITISH MILK BILL AND TUBERCULOSIS ORDER.

Speaking at a large meeting of dairy-farmers at Salisbury, called to consider the British Milk Bill and Tuberculosis Order, Mr. Sadler, who had been invited to address the meeting on the subject, said, “ They hoped the Legislature would be as keen on regulating the importation of butter and cheese as it was in regulating the production of milk in this country, and they had the right to go further than the expression of a pious hope. Why, in the name of Goodness, should not the people who send us butter and cheese from foreign countries be put under the same regulations ? While we cannot send our Inspectors abroad, we can impose upon the producers and manufacturers in other countries the same obligations by making it compulsory upon them to give a certificate that their goods are produced under the same conditions as provided for by the Act of Parliament in this country. It certainly is not calculated to produce respect among British farmers for their Home Government if they found that the conditions imposed upon their own products and manufactures were relaxed with' regard to' things from other countries which came in to compete with them.”

• A machine is being advertised in America for the incorporation of butterfat with skim-milk or a solution of milk-powder in such a manner as to produce a commodity having the normal constituents of milk or cream, and being, in effect, milk or cream as far as legal standards as to ingredients are concerned. By this means it is claimed that butter-fat and other solids of milk when separated can be held indefinitely; and from them, by the aid of the machine in question, scientifically true milk and cream can be produced by amalgamation.

South Africa to-day possesses upwards of fifty well-established creameries, the total output of which is said to be in the neighbourhood of 8,000,000 lb. per year. In addition to this, farmers and others, according to the. latest statistics, are responsible for a further 2,000,000 lb. to 3,000,000 lb., making in all 11,000,000 lb. per annum. This is a big advance on a few years ago, and there is every . possibility of the progress being maintained. During mail week a new creamery was opened at Pietermaritzburg, the premises, buildings, > and plant having cost £40,000. The capacity of the plant is 2| tons of butter per day.