AGRICULTURAL CO-OPERATION IN IRELAND. 223 



tactful management. What appears to be the best plan is to give the 

 Manager of the Central Dairy, subject to the approval of his committee (on 

 which the Auxiliaries ought to be invariably represented), supreme authority 

 over the Managers of the Auxiliaries so far as relates to dairying business 

 only. This arrangement we believe to be absolutely necessary and need 

 cause no disagreement between the two bodies or their respective Managers 

 if the duties of the Auxiliary Manager and the powers of the Central 

 Manager are clearly defined in the first instance. But the maintenance of 

 harmonious relations between the Central Dairy and its Auxiliaries, wdthout 

 which the system must break down, mainly depends upon two factors :— 

 (a) the basis upon which the cream is received by the Central Dairy, and 

 (d) the subsequent division of profits between the Societies. The ideal plan 

 seems to be for the Central Dairy to purchase the cream from the Auxiliary 

 at the same price per lb. for butter fat contained as that which it pays to its 

 own milk suppliers, allowing, of course, for cost of sepcuration and cartage to 

 the Central Dairy. The Auxiliary is thus put on a par with the ordinary 

 milk supplier, for it receives payment for the butter fat contained in its 

 cream regularly once a month, and participates in the profits of the Central 

 Dairy at the end of the year. There are two difficulties, however, which 

 have to be overcome. One is, to ascertain the just proportion of expenses 

 to be allowed by the Central Dairy to the Auxiliary for separation (which, 

 of course, must include depreciation, interest on capital, etc.), and for carting 

 the cream ; the other is, to determine accurately the percentage and weight 

 of butter fats contained in the cream. Testing cream is immeasurably 

 more troublesome and less accurate than testing milk, but if both Societies 

 are really determined to work together for their common good it ought to 

 prove easy enough to check the cream tests by the simple process of 

 churning the cream and weighing the butter produced. The cream should 

 also be tested before being sent from the Auxiliary to the Central Dairy. 

 There is another drawback to the Auxiliary system which pasteurisation at 

 the Auxiliary itself will remedy : this is the injury to cream in transit by 

 partial churning where it has not been at first pasteurised, or at all events 

 properly cooled. If the Auxiliary system is to be perfected each Creamery 

 must be fitted up with pasteurising machinery, and, though the first cost will 

 be heavy, it will unquestionably be repaid by the improved quality. Pas- 

 teurising involves the use of an artificial " starter " to set the true lactic 

 ferment at work in the cream, by which means only butter of an uniformly 

 excellent flavour and quality can be produced. Without this precaution it 

 would be quite possible for the Central Dairy to inflict a very great injustice 

 upon its Auxiliaries, for there would be nothing to prevent it from churning 

 the cream before it was properly ripened, or at too high a temperature, and 

 this would, of course, result in a diminution in the produce. In order that 

 the arrangement between the Central Dairy and its Auxiliaries should be as 

 perfect as possible, the representatives of the latter should be permitted to 

 take samples of the buttermilk after churning, for the purpose of analysis, 

 and, if necessary, to supervise the process of churning itself. There appears 

 to be little doubt but that the Auxiliary system will become practically 

 universal in the future. The principle of centralisation is economically 

 sound, and all that is required is to evolve a scheme of working which will 

 prove as satisfactory to the Auxiliary Creameries and the Central Dairy as 

 the existing Independent Creamery system is found to be to a Creamery and 

 its suppliers. 



