to bear in mind, that all the large milk records have been made by hand 

 milking. The development of dairy cows to their present large produc- 

 tion has been done by a process of hand milking and not by suction. It 

 is possible that inventors of suction milking machines have been working 

 on a wrong principle. Who can tell? It is a fact that a non-suction 

 milking machine has recently been invented in New Zealand, whose pro- 

 moters say that it is the only correct principle for milking cows. Who 

 can tell if this be so? It will require years of experience to determine 

 which type of machine will prove most satisfactory, and whether or not 

 machine milking is practicable. 



Fleischmann, a German authority, says: "It is only those who are 

 entirely ignorant of the nature of the milking- operation who can abandon 

 themselves to the idea of using milking machines of any description." 



Mechanical Problems. A milking machine to be popular must be 

 simple, cheap, durable, easily cleaned, require a minimum amount of 

 power, time, and labor to operate it, and one person must be able to 

 milk from four to six cows at once with the machine. While not wishing 

 to disparage any manufacturer of milking machines, we must say that 

 nearly all the machines which have been put on the market up to the 

 present have been too complicated for the average man to operate. They 

 are also too expensive for small farmers, and some of them have re- 

 quired altogether too much power, time, and labor to operate them. One, 

 at least, of those who have tried was impossible to keep clean. How- 

 ever, we have faith in the ultimate triumph of mechanical skill over the 

 p-.any difficulties connected with the problem of milking cows by machin- 

 ery. 



Practical Experience with Three Types of Machines. 



Our first experience in 1895 was with the "Murchland" suction, non- 

 pulsating machine, operated by means of a hand vacuum pump. After 

 working with this machine for some time we gave it up. The chief dif- 

 ficulties were in maintaining a uniform vacuum which resulted in the 

 cows not being milked out clean, consequently they gave less milk and 

 milk containing a lower percentage of fat, as compared with hand milk- 

 ing. 



Our second experience was with the "Thistle" milking machine, 

 which also operated on the suction principle, but combined a double 

 action, viz., sucking and squeezing of the teat. In other words, this 

 machine aimed to combine the motions of calf sucking and hand milk- 

 ing. For a time we got very good results, and it seemed as if the prob- 

 lem had been solved. However, when hot weather came we found an 

 odor in the milk which tainted it so badly that we were forced to give it 

 up. By some means or other, milk was drawn into the vacuum pipes and 

 when this milk began to decay the odor was very bad. As there was no 

 way of cleaning these pipes, except by taking the pipes down each time, 

 which was not practicable, we gave up the "Thistle" and laid it on the 



