418 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



think that a reasonable amount of modern appliances are neces- 

 sary to run an up-to-date dairy. Whenever and wherever I think 

 I can better the product of my dairy and lessen the amount of labor, 

 by adding some piece of machinery at a reasonable outlay, I feel 

 it is economy to do it. 



In August of 1906 I installed the B. L. K. milking machines. 

 The first few milkings the cows fell off in their milk but gradually 

 came back to a normal flow, and continued giving as great a flow 

 as by hand. I found the machines easy to keep clean and the wear 

 and breakage is practically reduced to a minimum. We use a 

 steam jet to sterilize the hose, teat cups, in fact, all parts of the 

 machine. After successfully using the milkers for a period of 14 

 months we discovered a decrease in the production ; we did every- 

 thing possible but could not hold the cows up, so discontinued the 

 use of the milkers and began milking by hand. Part of the cows 

 showed a slight increase in milk flow, but in no case did a cow show 

 any decrease after beginning to hand milk. We continued hand 

 milking for ten days, weighing each cow's milk, then again began 

 machine milking. The cows began failing again. We were par- 

 ticular to strip each cow after using the machines, but we found 

 the longer we used the milkers the harder it was to get the cows 

 to let down what milk remained in the udder by stripping, and in 

 some cases they would not let the milk down at all. At present 

 we are milking by hand and the cows are doing nicely under the 

 same conditions of weather and feeding. 



Since installing these machines I have been very generous in 

 their praise and even at this time I am loath to condemn them be- 

 cause there might be other conditions that caused this trouble. 

 I am led to believe the cause of this trouble is lack of manipulation 

 of the udder — hence, if one is compelled to thoroughly manipulate 

 each udder the amount of time taken to do this and care for the 

 machines will more than balance the time of hand milking, to say 

 nothing of the extra expenditure for the machines. I have thought 

 that the continual use of these machines, by their lack of manipu- 

 lation might cause a dormant condition of the udder. 



However, I hope to see in the very near future, these ma- 

 chines so perfected that they will be a success, as their assistance 

 would be of great benefit to the dairyman. 



