650 
The Murchland Milking Machine. 
cows are kept, there is frequently great difficulty experienced in 
mustering a sufficiency of hands for the work. A farm-servant, 
possessed of a wife who can milk, is picked up for service long 
before another who is not so fortunate (from the dairy-farmer's view) 
in this respect ; and one possessed of daughters who also can help 
in the operation is able to dispose of his services at a premium. 
Hence it happens that nearly every dairy-farmer of any importance 
is anxiously on the outlook for an efficient milking machine, and the 
appearance of a simple and workable apparatus, once the ice has been 
broken by one or two adventurous spirits having it put in operation, 
will be warmly welcomed. As the diagrams show, there is not much in 
the apparatus here described to make the initial cost at all prohibi- 
tive. The fixings are of ordinary material and can be adapted to 
any sort of building, and they are not likely to get out of order or to 
need renewal for many years. The pails with their accessories form 
the most expensive item, and it is the number of these that determines 
the number of cows which can be milked simultaneously. With a 
pail for each cow in the building, and a similar number of connec- 
tions on the overhead pipe, the whole of the animals could be 
milked in the same time as an individual cow. A boy is competent 
to maintain the necessary vacuum for the milking, either of one, or 
of the whole lot at once. Three girls can easily manage to keep 
half-a-dozen or nine pails going ; and in this way a large number of 
animals can be quickly dealt with. 
The principle of the machine, as has already been said, is no new 
one. Numerous milking machines on the same initial lines as 
Mr. Murchland's have been constructed, and one or two have been 
patented, but with no useful, jractical result. They are either too 
complicated, or too cumbersome, to be easily manipulated. Where 
Mr. Murchland's is superior to those which have gone before is in 
the availableness of the motive power at any part of the cow-house, 
wherever the pipe can be led — straight on, round a corner, or 
even into another building. With the other forms of apparatus it 
would appear that the attention of the pump is confined to one 
cow at a time, whereas in this case the action of a single pump is 
sufficient for all the animals which have to be milked, for one or all 
can be brought under the influence of the vacuum at the same time. 
The machine attempts nothing in the way of pulling and squeez- 
ing the teats similar to hand-milking, or occasionally thrusting 
against or tossing up the udder in imitation of the sucking calf, as 
some of the former machines have done, but trusts entirely to the 
pressure of the atmosphere for emptying the udder. The calf when 
sucking forms a vacuum by drawing its tongue down from the roof 
of its mouth, the closed lips in front and the false palate behind- pre- 
venting air from entering. The teat thus surrounded by a vacuum 
communicates the lowered pressure to the contents of the udder. 
The outside pressure on the udder being greater than the inner, :ts 
contents are consequently forced out. When the free space in the 
animal's mouth is filled it presses up the middle of its tongue, still 
keeping the lips closed, which action forces aside the soft palate and 
