230 agriculture; of maine. 



running the machine is included. This is a large sum of money 

 to most dairy farmers and many of them will hesitate to spend 

 this amount for a milking machine, especially so long as they 

 have no absolute certainty that the machine will prove a success 

 under their conditions and render it unnecessary to continue 

 milking by hand in their herds in the future. To the interest of 

 five hundred dollars, or perhaps twenty-five dollars a year, should 

 be added the cost of operating the machine, expenses of repairs, 

 depreciation of machine, etc., and this sum should be compared 

 with the saving that may be reasonably expected by the change 

 from hand to machine milking. The cost of power for running 

 che machine with a three horse power electric motor is, on the 

 average, four cents per hour or six cents per milking in a herd 

 of thirty cows, making a total of about three dollars and sixty 

 cents a month. This cost is estimated on a basis of five cents 

 per kilowatt. 



The average hand milker will milk from eight to ten cows per 

 hour. With two milking machines an efficient operator can 

 milk from twenty to twenty-five cows in the same time. 



The experience of practical dairy farmers and the results of 

 careful exhaustive trials agree in showing that so far as the 

 machine itself is concerned, the problem of mechanical milking 

 may now be considered solved, although minor improvements 

 in the present machines are needed and will doubtless be made 

 before long. It will, therefore, depend on the individual dairy 

 farmer whether machine milking can be made a success under 

 bis special conditions of dairying. 



The adoption of machine milking can only be recommended 

 under conditions where the farmer is able to give personal at- 

 tention to the operation of the machine, or has reliable, intelli- 

 gent help who can and will follow the directions of the manu- 

 facturers as to the care of the machine, manipulation of the 

 udder, stripping the cows, etc. Where such is the case we can 

 recommend ithe .milking machine for the general diairy farmer 

 who has a large herd, or for farmers owning smaller herds, 

 that is, from twenty to thirty head, who will be able to attend 

 to the milking of the herd, alone or with the help of a boy, by 

 means of the machine and thus avoid keeping extra help for 

 this purpose. 



