160 Animal Husbandry 
that the owner can attend to at such times as his help fails him. 
If the question of milking the cows, without being so dependent 
on hired help, could be satisfactorily solved, the number of animals 
kept on many dairy farms would increase up to the limit of the 
acreage to feed the animals. 
There are now machines on the market that will milk cows. 
There are, however, many questions relative to their use that 
cannot be answered with much positiveness; chief of which are 
the efficiency with which they milk, the effect on the cow, the 
effect on the milk, and their economy. 
It is well known that one milker may secure more milk than 
others from the same cow, and that after a cow has become ac- 
customed to a milker, a change results in a decrease in the pro- 
duction. It may be expected, therefore, that the immediate 
effect of changing from hand to machine milking will be attended 
by the same results. The figures available go to show that, 
taking the year through, the average cow yields approximately 
as much milk to the machine method as to the hand method of 
milking, particularly if she is stripped by hand after the machine 
milking. 
265. Milk-records.— Record of performance among dairy 
cattle constitutes the only method of determining their value. 
Without such records, we would not be able to choose the very 
high- or the very low-producing, or the profitable from the un- 
profitable animals. At present, many dairy herds possess cattle 
producing at a loss — not yielding sufficient milk to pay for the 
food consumed — yet in the absence of accurate records the fact 
goes unobserved and the owner does not know the profitable from 
the unprofitable animals. No person is able to go into a herd of 
ten cows and pick out all the best by examination. Records are 
absolutely necessary to determine profit and loss. 
266. Method of keeping records. — Records are more easily 
kept than is generally supposed. The time and cost of keeping a 
record of the amount of milk and butter-fat yielded by each cow 
