The North-Eastern Dairy Company was established on 14th December 1892 as a butter factory and built in 1893. In 1928 a new butter factory was built and a milk products factory in 1952. Whole milk sales commenced in 1951, with pasteurised, homogenised milk in both bottles and cartons being sold in the 1980's. Devondale / Murray Goulburn was established in 1950. Cartons enabled the safe transportation and storage of milk. The North East Dairy Company enabled the dairy farmers in the Kiewa Valley to send their milk and milk products eg. cream to the factory at Kiewa. The factory bought its own cream carting vehicles during WW1. The 'full cream / homogenised / pastuerised / milk' is an example of the milk available in the 1980's as many different varieties of ingredients followed in later years.Blue, red & white waterproof sealed cardboard box used for storing fresh milk from the Kiewa factory 'Murray Goulburn'. The large box contains 2 litres and the smaller box, 1 litre. Each of the 4 faces have print - 2 have the title, 1 has advertising and 1 has instructions on how to store the carton of milk2 litre - Use by Date stamped at the top: 'Un Ed Oct 19' 1 litre - Use by Date stamped at the top: 'Ned Feb. 13'milk, murray goulburn, kiewa butter factory, kiewa milk products

This bottle was manufactured for the Lady Talbot Milk Institute. The Institute was initiated circa 1900 by Lady Talbot wife of Sir Reginald Arthur James Talbot, Governor of Victoria (1904 to 1908). From 1908 the Lady Talbot Milk Institute provided "pure" unpasteurized cows milk to specific mothers throughout Victoria. Similar bottles were filled with Specially Supervised "Nursery Milk". The reason for establishing this specialised nursing milk was to reduce the high mortality rate of infants(not on breast milk) in the early 1900s due to contaminated milk supplies. Pasteurized milk became available after World War II which ensured that milk consumed by infants (not able to obtain breast milk) was free from any contaminants. Bottled milk distributed by the Lady Talbot Milk Institute was used by specific mothers of infants in lieu of breast milk. As this requirement was throughout Victoria some nursing mothers within the Kiewa Valley and in the SEC Company town of Mount Beauty needing this service were covered. The establishment(Circa 2000) of breast milk supply from donor mothers throughout Australia has replaced the fundamental product initiated by the Talbot Milk Institute. The slogan "Breast is best" initiated by the Nursing Mothers Association is one of the major supporters of the mother's milk bank supplies.One pint wide necked refillable glass milk bottle. Chipped rim and base. Side 1 MILK Embossed Contents Not less than One Pint (This bottle cannot be legally used or sold by others) This bottle is the property of the Caulfield Model Farm To be washed and returned Side 2 Embossed circular logo with a cross in the centre Surrounded by brand name Lady Talbot Milk Institute Specially Supervised Nursery Milk Base, 62lady talbot milk institute, glass milk bottle, caulfield model farm, bresat milk substitute

At the time when this shortbread / butter stamp block was used, rural dairies and larger properties who manufactured their own butter used butter stamps blocks for identifying the source of the butter or for decoration.. The patterns stamped into the warmed butter provided for a range of decorative visual enhancement to the "plain" and "boring" straight leveled normal butter surface. Although the wooden surfaces could be hard to keep clean commercial usage would have been limited and eventually replaced by a non porous and hygienically cleaner material. Greater hygiene controls where introduced. from the late 1940s on. These controls were the result of high infectious illnesses due to contaminated milk and dairy handling methods.This shortbread / butter stamp was used by a Kiewa Valley dairy and it presents what the domestic butter beautification processes were available during the mid to latter 1900s was. Their was a pride by rural properties in their produce and its by-products.This shortbread / butter stamp is made from wood, round and fashioned from a flat bed to a dome top. The top has a round moulded hole with screw indentations for fastening a pressure pole. The pattern on the face of the stamp is of an eleven petalled flower pattern around a small circular flower head. Both the head and petals have indentations which are will produce raised points in the pressed butter. Enclosing the flower pattern is a pattern which when pressed against the butter would produce small ridges radiating outward.On the dome stamped in black ink "T. & W. Davies"butter stamp, domestic butter blocks, domestic food preparations., shortbread, stamp, dairy, butter

Bottled Phenyle cleaner was used throughout the 1900's in domestic kitchens, toilets and other "clean, germ free" environments. Some of these environments would encompass dairying milk handling rooms and hospital kitchens and ablution areas. It is a product which has resulted in the poisoning of some unwitting users (newspaper accounts of a woman in 1928 who drank some phenyle mistakenly for wine and died). The reliance of effective poisonous cleaning products in kitchens, especially in the 1900's was and is still a very hazardous element that the "most pivotal place in a house" contains. In the era when this particular bottle was used (1920's) the main means where consumed around the kitchen table, and this was especially so in rural areas. Keeping this area "germ" free was a mandatory requirement.This bottle is significant to the Kiewa Valley because this area was mostly rural with "out houses" and milk collection areas that required that "extra attention" of sanitation. Rural areas also where more prone to have the kitchen area as a general meeting place for the family before dinner and other meals. Sanitation was of greater importance in rural areas, due to the greater distances to hospitals and doctors if contamination occurred. City homes at this time frame had lounge rooms for the daily get together of the family unit. This was an era before the television and computer age fragmented and isolated family members from one another. This was a time that family members grouped together in the kitchen to find out "the latest news".This amber glass, diamond shaped bottle with cork stopper once contained Phenyle. Phenyle is a highly poisonous liquid. The amber opaque glass was used and not a clear glass to highlight it's content. It has a cork stopper at the top of a slender neck. All the glass embossed writing is highlighted by a string of crosses. The cross was used to enforce a visual danger sign.On one side "THIS BOTTLE IS THE PROPERTY OF" and in large print underneath "KITCHEN'S" and below this and underlined "POISONOUS". On the next side "NOT TO BE TAKEN" and next side in very large print and surrounded by a border "PHENYLE" with crosses enclosing it. On the bottom of a "blank side is "REGd. No. 2140" On the base is M 959 and Mkitchen cleaners, food preparation area, ablutions

This item was used in conjunction with the Suddeth (Sudden Death) Carbon Bi-siilphide fumigator during many rabbit plagues that invaded Victoria and NSW before CSIRO introduced the myxomatosis virus in 1950.The contents of this jug was very important pre 1950 for all rural areas which suffered under the annual mice plagues, especially the wheat producing regions. Milk producers suffered from the mice by products contaminating their fresh milk containers and storage facilities. Rabbit warrens causing farm machinery instabilities and also horseback activities eg mustering herds.This glazed pottery jug has a screw on lid and a cream coloured body with a caramel brown neck. The remnance of a handle, which has been broken off is located at the top just below the the rim of the lid.On one side below the neck and within a black boundary mark "SUDDETH" and below "SMOKE MIXTURE No. 2" and sandwiched between two black lines "POISON". Below this and in five lines "PATENTED APRIL 6th '08 No. 11205(AUST.)" "PATENTED APRIL 6th '08 No. 24711 (N.Z.)" "THIS MIXTURE GOES IN BOTTLE FURTHEST FROM MACHINE" "DO NOT SPILL ON YOUR HANDS OR CLOTHING" "F, GREER, PATENTEE SYDNEY"ceramic bowls, contamination of farm produce, domestic farm hygiene, vermin extermination poisons

In 1890 D. Babcock invented a test for measuring the amount of butter fat in milk, either on the farm or in the dairy or creamery. Samples of milk were put in the glass vial and then spun (by cranking the handle) causing the cream to separate from the non-fat milk thus determining the percentage of cream in the milk. The product was then priced accordingly.Dairy farming in the Kiewa Valley was the main industry with farmers keen to test the quality of their milk before selling it. This centrifuge enabled them to test the amount of milk and cream being produced by their herd. This '1903 Butter Fat Tester' made 100 turns per minute. Early hand crank centrifuge for measuring the butterfat content of milk in the farm dairy or creamery. It has 4 brass / copper removable canisters with glass vials and tubes that fit inside. The glass vials bulge at the bottom and are marked with measurements 1, 2 etc.Numbers on the glass vialsmilk and cream tester, dairy farming, centrifuge

This "home made" squeegee was manufactured in the mid to late 1900's by an ingenuous dairyman as a solution to the removal of cow "pats" from the concrete floors of his "milking" sheds. The tea tree made squeegee (being made from nature's anti bacterial material) was an excellent hygienic implement to use. This "home made" wooden squeegee is very significant to the Kiewa Valley and its surrounding regions because it highlights the natural ingenuity found in the pioneer farmer, grazier and other rural folk. It demonstrates the "mother of invention and adaptation" is very strong in rural areas where "off the shelf" products were a rare quantity. Part of the natural psyche of the rural Australian inhabitants is the ability to produce inventions that overcome physical restrictive conditions, "the man/woman of all trades" is an apt description of the pioneers of yesteryear and of those to come.The squeegee handle is a long branch made from a tea tree, inserted into the upper flat side of a slab of tea tree wood which is flat on one side and curved on the other, the natural curve of the tree trunk. This squeegee was used on dairies for removing cow manure.timber, dairy, farm, rural, implement

This type of butter churn was used around the early to mid 20 century by household and small farms of the Kiewa Valley who kept cows for Milk. The buy product of the milk was cream and butter. Once the cows had been milked, often by hand, women would place the milk in shallow dish, and next morning the cream would be separated from the milk. Or a cream separator machine would be used. The cream would then be churned by the paddles in the butter churner until it formed in butter clumps. Butter Pats would be used to take the butter out and press into triangle butter blocksThis butter churner is significant due to its historical value which explains how butter was made by hand before this process became mechanistically made. Many houses or small farms in the Kiewa Valley had these butter churns to make their own butter for their household or to sell. This has very good interpretation significance as it adds to the history of dairy industry in the Kiewa Valley. Wooden box with a metal handle for turning the blades /paddles /slats inside the box.These blades churn the cream when the handle is turned. There is also a wooden handle and a wooden lid.butter, dairy, milk, manual, domestic, item, food, preparation, dairying, technology