Tlie Murchhnd Milking Machine. 
G49 
stop-cock is opened, and the pail at once forms a vacuum. Next, 
one of the teat-cups is moistened and placed so as to embrace a 
teat ; the stop-cock of the former is opened, so that the teat is 
brought in contact with the _. _ 
Fiff. 5 The Teat-cup. 
o.- 
Section. 
Iruiut-Ruhbtr 
vacuum, and the milk at once 
begins to flow. When all four 
of the cups have been adjusted, 
and each is connected with the 
vacuum, four tiny jets of milk 
can be seen playing into the 
can immediately beneath the 
glass lid or stopper. The jets 
deliver the milk in streams, 
that seem to pulsate in accord- 
ance with the action of the 
animal's body. From 8 to 10 
minutes serve to exhaust the 
milk stored up in the udder. 
An animal operated on by 
the machine seems to sutler no 
inconvenience, and to be quite 
unconscious that she is being 
deprived of her milk in an un- 
orthodox fashion. The apparatus causes no pain, though it is 
rather amusing to watch the astonishment of some fractious old 
cow when first brought under the influence of the machine. Her 
alert air, shown in the erect head, stiffened ears, and distended 
eyes, indicates that she is aware of something unusual going 
on, but what or whereabout she is not exactly sure until the 
apparatus has been at work for some time. After a little fidget- 
ing, however, and an occasional kick out, she soon recovers her 
equanimity, and settles down, as though nothing were the matter, to 
busy herself with what is to be had in the manger. And a newly 
calved heifer, once the apparatus has been adjusted on her and set 
going, makes as little to do over the affair. Indeed, the apparatus 
promises to save to milk-yielding animals much distress which, under 
existing circumstances, it is difficult to avoid causing. Its use will 
obviate the excruciating pain that animals with swollen or chapped 
teats have to suffer when being milked by hand. And certainly its 
employment insures much greater cleanliness in the operation of 
milking than can usually be attained by using the hand. Those 
familiar with milking as carried out on a large scale, and under the 
conditions incidental to ordinary homesteads, know what this means. 
The several pairs of hands which feed and clean the cows and 
remove their litter have to take their turn in milking, and usually 
with too scant opportunity— and this little not always taken advan- 
tage of— for removing the effects of the one operation before begin- 
ning the other. 
In the south-west of Scotland there is in most parts a very 
decided scarcity of good milkers. At farms, where from 40 to 100 
VOL. I. T. 8.— 3 U U 
