212 CONSUMPTION 



numbers of those engaged in sedentary occupations has increased 

 the effective demand for the lighter forms of animal foodstuffs such 

 as those furnished by that industry. 



The competition which butter production has to meet from other 

 forms of production within the dairy industry has been serious, 

 and threatens to be more so in the future, so long as a shortage is 

 felt in animal foodstuffs. This competition is greatest from cheese 

 production, but it arises also from the demand for milk for con- 

 sumption as such, for the manufacture of dried and condensed milk, 

 for the feeding of calves to be raised as prime beef -cattle, and to a 

 limited extent also from the demand for milk for the manufacture 

 of margarine. 



A study of the facts show that the conversion of milk into butter 

 is not the most economical means of utilising its food value for 

 human consumption, unless the skim -milk is also consumed as 

 human food. 1 The latter is usually used as a valuable part ration 

 for pigs and calves, but there is a loss of food values in this process 

 as compared with the other means of utilising whole milk, namely, 

 the manufacture of cheese, and still more for direct consumption 

 in households as such. 2 



It appears, therefore, that unless the production of milk expands 

 greatly in the future, the manufacture of butter may become con- 

 fined to those regions in which there is a great surplus of milk, and 

 which are at the same time distant from centres of large population. 

 Even in these regions the competition from cheese manufacture 

 will be seriously felt, 3 and to a smaller extent from dried milk 

 manufacture. The growing shortage of meat supplies causes an 

 an increased demand for cheese as a substitute concentrated food- 



1 Unfortunately the mixed skim-milk by-product, obtained by means of 

 the cream-separator, is suitable only for stock consumption, and as butter 

 production is almost everywhere becoming dependent upon the separator 

 for cheapness and efficiency, the disappearance of skim-milk from human 

 consumption becomes more evident. The fact that butter cannot be pro- 

 duced with sufficient cheapness and efficiency by the hand-skimming method, 

 yielding skim-milk suitable for human consumption, may result in a further 

 weakening of the butter-making industry against cheese manufacture. 



2 Cow'j milk contains, on an average, about 3-6% of fat, about 4-2% of 

 milk sugar, about 4-5% of albumen and casein and about 0*7% of ash, or 

 about 13% of solids in all. In butter manufacture the fat only is directly 

 used as human food (unless the skim-milk is so available) ; in cheese manu- 

 facture the fat and the casein, while all the available solids are so utilised 

 when the fresh milk is converted into dried or condensed milk, or, of course, 

 when it is consumed as whole milk. 



3 This is already the case in New Zealand, where the dairy industry was 

 devoted in its early stages almost exclusively to the production of butter. 

 Recently, however, cheese factories have rapidly increased and threaten in 

 some cases to drive out the butter factories. The exports of cheese from New 

 Zealand are as follows : In 1906, 131,000 cwts. ; in 1910, 452,000 cwts. ; in 

 1913, 612,000 cwts. ; and'in 1916 about 1 million cwts. The exports of butter 

 averaged 313,500 cwts. in the years 1904-6, and rose to an average of only 

 317..600 cwts. in the years 1908-12. 



