390 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



acts as a valve and prevents the pulsations to descend below it into 

 the bucket. 



One man with six sets of milkers can milk 50 cows an hour: a 

 horse on an ordinary tread-power can. with two men to attend and 

 twelve sets of milkers, milk 100 cows per hour. The pails or cans 

 are air-tight and thus exclude the foul air, hair, filth, etc. There .re 

 ten sets of the apparatus at the hospital, and the men in charge of 

 the barns think the invention is a valuable one. 



The artificial hands are made of good quality rubber and are 

 called pulsating teat cups, being slightly corrugated on the interior. 

 The four teats may be milked singly or collectively. 



Dr. Gapen was enthusiastic over the machine, as were all others 

 who have seen it operate. After one or two trials the cows take to it 

 naturally, and the sight of ten cows being mechanically milked and 

 without any apparent force, is an inspiring one and is calculated to 

 cause one to think that the inventive genius is very much alive in man. 



cup begins to collapse at the top, compressing the teat at the bottom, 

 as shown in Figure 2. The still further increase of the suction col- 

 lapses the cup, with a stripping action from the root to the tip. The 

 air is then admitted to partially destroy the vacuum, allowing the cup 

 to resume its original shape. This action is repeated 45 times a min- 

 ute, and it comes as near the action of the sucking calf as can be 

 done. Every time that the suction is reduced and the cup takes its 

 original form, it allows the milk to flow down and fill the teat, the 

 next compression forcing out the milk. The milk flow r s through a 

 short piece of india rubber tubing into a glass milk trap set in the top 

 of the milk receiver. The trap being of glass the flow of the milk 

 can be observed and the suction maybe withdrawn as soon as the cow 

 is milked. The pulsator contains a small vibrating vacuum motor 

 and the power to operate the valves in the box, and produces the 

 pulsation. The pulsations do not extend to the milk pail, as the end 

 of the milk trap that projects into the pail has a rubber ball which 



