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49
The Public Milk Supply and its Relationship to Science.
Only a few years ago the farmer produced milk somehow and
almost anyhow, and milk-borne disease claimed its place in the nation's
bills of mortality and disability. To-day, although matters are far
from perfect, there is just cause for believing that we are entitled to
refer to the science of milk production.
It is only by the education of the public that we will be able to
procure the ideal milk supply. When the public know they will then
demand, and the farmer who holds to old-fashioned methods must either
sink or respond to the public's appeal.
Come with me and let us con over some of those steps which prove
that there is an awakening conscience.
Those who criticise and jibe at the long years which have passed
with apparently little improvement, must remember that no law can
compel a farmer to produce milk, hence we find that in our latest Milk
Act of 1922, Sir Alfred Mond himself said that it was a compromise
Act, that if we made the conditions too onerous we would only get a
smaller supply of milk and the position would be worse. He said that
agriculture was much depressed, that the dairy industry was going
through a crisis, and that landlords could not spend money in remodelling
buildings. His Milk Act is calculated to leaven the whole, to teach the
public that there is a good and a bad, and to make the consumer rise
up and demand a better article. Already in Deptford we have seen,
since January, 1923, firms and premises licensed to sell Certified
Milk, as well as the usual doubtful fluid simply called Milk.
What steps are being taken to produce a milk of blameless quality,
of high chemical composition and of a satisfactory bacteriological
standard ?
You have all heard the names of the different breeds of cows. We
have the Dexier, the Ayrshire and Jersey cattle, the Friesen, Kerry,
Shorthorn, Guernsey, Red Poll and so on. The choice of a satisfactory
breed, if you are starting a farm, is all important. It has been proved
by Mackintosh, as a result of study spread over several years, of the
data obtained at milking trials at the British Dairy Farmers' Show and
at the Royal Agriculture Show, that it is possible to name those breeds
which give :—
(a) The heaviest yield of milk,
(b) The best chemical composition,
and to give farmers figures which help with regard to the cost of
production.