Milk and Milking. 10 



an excellent practice, as it has a plainly apparent 

 soothing effect on the cow. 



To learn to milk well it should be practiced slowly, 

 because both hands must become equally expert ; the 

 pressure of the hand on the teat must be applied in 

 regular alternation, so that when one hand closes 

 -around the teat the other hand opens, and the flow of 

 milk into the pail is continuous ; an experienced cat- 

 call detect at once if a milker works well. 



The full hand should grasp the teat as high up' to- 

 wards the udder as possible, then the thumb and in- 

 dex close tightly around the teat so as to shut off the 

 milk contained in the teat from retreating into the 

 milk cistern when the pressure on the teat is applied. 

 Then the other fingers, one by one from the index 

 downward, close around the teat in rapid succession 

 and press out the milk. The amount of pressure re- 

 quired to press the teat depends on the more or less 

 developed muscles that encircle the orifice of the teat 

 for the purpose of retaining the milk, which would, 

 without this provision, flow to the ground as fast as 

 produced. Cows in which these muscles are strongly 

 developed are called hard milkers. As soon as the 

 milk has been pressed from the teat, the hand eases 

 up, and immediately the milk from the cistern rushes 

 into the teat, filling it again ; the pressure of the hand 

 and fingers is repeated until the firstly grasped pair of 

 teats do no longer give a full flow, whereupon both 

 hands change to the two remaining teats. During 

 the rest now given to the first milked pair of teats, 



