302 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



mented with it. What we are interested in now is, to know whether 

 by continuing the use it will continue to be as satisfactory as it is 

 at the present time. 



MR. HUTCHISON: What is the cost of the machine? 



MR. BILLINGS: We paid $65 for it. 



MR. FENSTEBMAKER: Who is the manufacturer of the machine? 



MR. BILLINGS: George Lowe Behring is the manufacturer of 

 this machine. He has been working at this machine for fifteen years. 

 The inventor was at my place and showed us some things about it. 



MR. AGEE: Didn't you ever observe that some nervous cows pre- 

 fer it to hand-milking? 



MR. BILLINGS: Yes, that is another point. Some cows take it 

 more kindly than they do hand-milking. 



PROF. VAN NORMAN: There are a great many of us who would 

 not milk for tAvice the income we are getting, and I believe this. 

 When the milking machine is perfected, it is going to make it pos- 

 sible to employ more intelligent men for the work, and we are 

 going to be able to pay a higher price for more intelligent men. 



MR. BILLINGS: I would say this, that if you put in one of these 

 machines, you have got to hang to it a little while, or else you will 

 discard it before you know what it is. We had to work something 

 like two to three weeks before we got everything satisfactory. Some 

 of the people who have bought them have discarded them in two 

 or three weeks, simply because they did not stick to it until they 

 knew just how to operate them. 



DR. DETRICH: Mr. Chairman, we have looked quite carefully 

 into the milk machine question for other people, but the real ob- 

 jection to the machine is, the jealously which people have towards 

 the instrument. They don't want to use it. They had a terrible 

 time with the help at Berkley's farm. The trouble is, the men think 

 it is in opposition to their own business. 



It is like the mowing machine when I was a boy. You can hardly 

 imagine the opposition there was at first to the use of the mowing 

 machine. If you had a mowing machine, you could hardly get a man 

 in to help you hay under any circumstances. It is the very same 

 with the milking machine. Everj^thing is really in favor of that 

 milking machine. The only thing that I can see is, that cows have 

 different sized teats, and you have to have different sized apparatus 

 to fit these teats — you have to have different sized cups. It is a 

 rather pleasant operation for the cattle. I have seen it put on cattle 

 for the first time and they took it without trouble. 



It is a cleaner operation than ordinary hand milking, and the men 

 are neater. One man can operate and milk six cows at a time. 



Men who write up the machine, who are aware of this prejudice, 

 say wait a little while, and the prejudice will disappear as it has in 

 other instances, but the trouble is you will find that your men will 

 make objections to it; they don't want to do this and they don't want 

 to do that — they don't object to the machine exactly, but as a matter 



