64 Report of Department of Animal iNDrsTRY of the 



OUE OWN STUDIES. 



Logically tho first step in studjing any machine is to become 

 familiar with its manner of operation. Accordingly, for some 

 months, the authors personally attended to the daily milking of a 

 number of cows with the milking machine. After they became 

 familiar with the details of its working the barn foreman was 

 likewise carefully trained in the work. Before undertaking the 

 studies of the Burrell-Lawrence-Kennedy machine in 1907 the 

 barn foreman spent two weeks in the private dairy of the manu- 

 facturer acquainting himself with all of the points peculiar to the 

 manipulation of this machine. At the time of installing the 

 machine and on a number of subsequent occasions we have had the 

 advantage of advice and instruction from the company's 

 representatives who have been skilled in the operation of the 

 machine. Throughout these studies the aim has been to operate 

 these milking machines in accord with the directions furnished by 

 the manufacturers except in so far as it was necessary to depart 

 from these in the study of some particular phase of the milking 

 machine problem. 



These studies have been complicated by the fact that, though 

 but one make and type of machine has been under investigation 

 during the five years, the machines themselves have been undergo- 

 ing marked changes. The sum total of these changes has been 

 so great that the milking machine of 1912 bears little resemblance 

 to that of 1907. 



The problems connected with the milking machine are too 

 numerous and too complicated to be solved by any single line of 

 experiments or within a short period. During the years in which 

 the present machine has been continuously under observation in- 

 formation has been accumulated regarding several phases of the 

 question. While it is the aim of this publication to discuss the 

 relation of the machine method of milking to the yield of the cow 

 it seems desirable here to summarize, at least, the other observa- 

 tions, especially as some of them are intimately related to the 

 larger question of milk flow. 



