1856. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



399 



Fvr the Neio England Farmer. 



A MACHINE FOR MILKING COWS. 



There is no work about a farm that is so univer- 

 sally considered drudgery, and avoided, and dread- 

 ed by all the inmates of the farm-house, as the con- 

 stantly recurring labor of milking. It is always the 

 first thing to be done in the morning, and the last at 

 night. And after a hard day's work at the wash- 

 tub, or in the hay field, through a long, hot day in 

 July or August, — to be obliged to sit down and 

 milk three or four cows, is certainly no very tri- 

 fling or attractive affair. To be able to perform 

 this work easily and rapidly by machinery is there- 

 fore one of the most desirable steps to be made 

 in the jirocess of labor-saving inventions, in agri^ 

 cultural improvement. And when it is considered 



that in the United States alone, there were in 1850 |ly affects it at all, and there is no pulling, or flinch- 

 6,385,000 milch cows, each one to be milked by ing, or squeezing in any direction. All the while 

 hand twice every day for about three hundred days the milk is flowing at the rate of about two quarts 



teat, with a small hole in the bottom for the milk 

 to pass through. The cap fits to the top of the 

 cup, air tight, by its own contraction, and also hangs 

 around the end of the teat, but by its flexibility 

 permits a free flow of the milk into the cup and 

 through the rubber tube into the pail. 



Having got the machine in readiness, I slip eac^ 

 of the cow's teats into one of the sofl, flexible sacks 

 or mouths, which can be done in an instant with 

 the end of the thumb — the rubber clings around 

 the teats and holds the cups in place. I then com- 

 mence pumping slowly and easily, and the milk 

 flows in a large, steady stream from each teat, 

 through the tubes into the pail. The cow, mean 

 time, is quietly chewing her cud, hardly knowing 

 that anything is going on ; so jjcriectly is ihe teat 

 sustained by the rubber sack, that the suction hard 



in a year; that the amount of the butter and cheese 

 for that year, as shown by the census, was 418,- 

 881,000 "pounds, in addition to $7,000,000 worth 

 of milk sold, we get some idea of the magnitude of 

 the labor to be annually performed in milking. 



But it is not a difficult matter to perform all this 

 unpleasant drudgery by machinery. The only wonder 

 h that so simple a thing had not been discovered and 

 used years ago. Just look at a calf while he is suck- 

 ing, and consider how rapidly, easily and perfectly he 

 would perlbrm the operation of drawing milk from 

 the cow's udder, if he had four mouths instead oj 

 one! And every one will see it is no very difficult 

 afiair to construct a machine with four mouths, 

 that will do the same thing in the same way, quite 

 as easily, rapidly and perfectly as the calf could do 

 it! drawing all the milk into a pail or vessel, free 

 from every impurity, and with very little exertion. 



Acting on this idea, I have been devoting the 

 leisure moments of some two or three years to ex- 

 periments, with a view to perfect a machine for 

 milking cows ; and I am happy to say that I have 

 succeeded beyond my most sanguine expectations. 

 My application for a patent is now under examina- 

 tion in the Patent Office, and the machine will soon 

 be presented to the public. 



It is somewhat dilhcult to describe even the most 

 simple piece of mechanism, without diagrams or 

 illustrations, so as to make one's self understood ; 

 but this little machine is so simple, and its action 

 so easily comprehended, that I will venture to des- 

 cribe it without cuts or figures. 



In the first place, I take a large size pail, either 

 of tin or wood, and fit on it a cover so as to make 

 it air tight ; then I construct a small pump in some 

 compact form, so as to exhaust a part of the air 

 from the pail. The pump made for my experi- 

 ments (and which is described in the application 

 for a patent) is a part of the cover to the pail, and 

 being flat and thin, works rapidly and without fric- 

 tion, and does not wear so as to leak. It is only 

 necessary to produce a slight vacuum, such as a 

 calf might make with his mouth — I then connect 

 four small rubber tubes, about eighteen inches long, 

 with the top of the pail ; and on the other end of 

 each of these tubes, I fix a little cup of tin, glass, 

 or any other convenient material, about two inch- 

 es in diameter and three inches deep. Over the 

 top of each of these cups is drawn a cap of thin, 

 flexilile rubber, having a sack or mouth in the cen- 

 tre, of sufficient size to receive the end of the cow's 



per minute ; at any rate, I have milked eight quarts 

 of milk from my cow in four minutes, with a ma- 

 chine by no means perfect ; because being the fi-rst 

 and only one ever made, and got up only to ex- 

 periment with, it has suggested improvements 

 which will be embodied hereafter ; I am entirely 

 satisfied that a child or a woman can milk with this 

 machine with perfect ease, faster than four milkers 

 either men or women, can milk by hand. 



But the chiefest recommendation of the machine 

 still remains to be mentioned. The common meth- 

 od of miU\ing by hand necessarily exposes the milk 

 to more or less dust, dripping from the hands, and 

 other kinds of filth, Avhich often spoils its taste, and 

 always gives one the idea that he is swallowing a 

 disagreeable amount of unmentionable materials. 

 Even the best and most careful milkers cannot 

 avoid getting something into the pail that should 

 not go there ; this is ])roved by the universal cus- 

 tom of the straining milk immediately after milking, 

 in all cases, and l)y whomsoever it may have been 

 milked. But straining will not take out the drip- 

 pings from the hands of careless, filthy milkers ; 

 and the result is, a very general complaint among 

 consumers, of the l)ad taste of milk, too often at- 

 tributed to the adulteration or dishonesty of milk- 

 men. 



This machine, however, entirely obviates this un- 

 ])leasant difficulty. The milk is drawn directly 

 from the udder into a covered, air tight pail, where 

 no dust or drippings or filth can fall of itself, or 

 be thrown by carelessness. The Irish girls cannot 

 dip their hands into the pail to moisten the teats, 

 as is their common practice, nor can the cow step 

 into the pail, or kick it over, so as to spill the milk. 



In short, I think the milking machine will be a 

 great labor-saving improvement for the agricultu- 

 ral community, and a genuine comfort to both the 

 cows and the consumers. Immediate effn-fs will 

 be made, after obtaining a patent, to introduce the 

 machine to the notice of the public, and to supply 

 the market demand for them. It is no': possible 

 at present to say at what ])rice they can be afford- 

 ed, but probably they will not cost far from five 

 dollars apiece. John W. Kingsman. 



Dover, JV.H^JuhjIl, 1856. 



Order! — Never leave things lying about — a 

 shawl here, a pair of slippers there, and a bonnet 

 somewhere else — trusting to a servant to set thing? 



