For the maintenance of the purity and quality of Australian butter and other dairy produce, the Commerce Act passed by the Commonwealth Government requires that each of these articles shall conform to certain standards. Butter intended for shipment oversea must be covered with a true trade description, and that the following information should appear on each box:—The word "Australia," the name of the State in which it was produced, net weight, manufacturer's or exporter's name or registered brand, and the words "pure creamery butter," "pastry butter," "milled butter" (that is, butter which is a mixture or blend of two or more butters ordinarily packed alone and under separate names or brands), or "repacked butter," as the case may require. Other matters may be added, but must be true, and not liable to mislead. Margarine must be so stamped or marked. All butter and other dairy products intended for export must be sent for inspection to appointed places. The inspecting officer issues a certificate on the authorised form that it is up to the standard.
The regulations now in force contain important provisions in regard to the standard for export dairy products. By means of these provisions purity and quality are guaranteed. Trade is also facilitated, since quantities of butter are purchased solely on the certificate issued, without inspection. The standard for butter, the most important dairy article, is as follows:—Butter which contains only—No fat other than butter fat, not more than 16 per cent. of water, 3 per cent. of casein, 0.5 per cent. of boric acid, 4 per cent. of salt, or less than 82 per cent. of butter fat; or any colouring matter deemed by the Minister for Trade and Customs to be harmless.
Lucerne Hay.
Subsidiary Industries.
Pig-Raising.—Not least among the rural industries awaiting a far wider development in Australia is that of pig raising. For very many years the number of these animals raised in the different States showed no appreciable increase, though of more recent years improvements in this direction have been noticeable. Yet the rate of progress is quite unequal to the requirements of local demand and of the export business.
Pig raising for years has been a kind of subsidiary industry to dairying, and as such has seldom received the attention warranted by the returns yielded. To some extent it has been the ease with which these profits have been obtained that has brought about the condition of affairs existent to within a few years ago. Pig raising now, instead of being regarded merely as an adjunct to dairying, is being looked upon much in the same light as is a main line whether connected with dairying or general farming. This is indicated by the fact that where previously any description of boar or sow was good enough to produce a litter, now both farmers and dairymen are using chiefly the pedigree stock, and are giving attention to the different crosses most likely to give the largest litters suitable for bacon production, which can be brought into condition for market in the quickest time. The introduction of these businesslike methods has naturally resulted in greater gains, and has further given a stimulus to the pig-raising industry.
The policy of closer settlement which is entering freely into the rural development of the various States is furthermore causing farmers and settlers to give more careful attention to any side industry which can be made to return a good margin of profit on the labour expended. In other words, the modern farmer is becoming more alive to the business possibilities of what may be termed specialised production. It is in this fact that the future development of the pig-raising industry depends. A dairyman, general farmer, irrigationist, and even the fruitgrower finds the pig of inestimable value in using up the waste produce, and turning it into a commodity which will return high interest in a remarkably short space of time.