AN EXPERIMENT.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4798, 12 January 1925, Page 3

AN EXPERIMENT.

COMPARISON OF METHODS* HAND MILKING OR BY MACHINES. With a view to making a comparison on certain points between hand and machine milking' the Scottish Board of Agriculture proposes to conduct an investigation, and has asked the Board of the West of Scotland Agricultural College, Glasgow, to draw up a detailed scheme. In accordance with the request the College Board has-, formed a tentative jscheme which will be submitted to the Board of Agriculture in due course. The main object of the investigation is to compare, as regards cost, efficiency, and cleanliness, hand milking as against machine milking. In the provisional scheme proposed by the College it is intended to use twelve or more cows for the experiment, these being divided into three groups. The whole test will probably extend over three years, and it ip expected that the Board will grant the College a sum of £2OO per annum, so .that a fully-qualified person may be obtained for the entire period. It will no doubt sound strange to New Zealand producers to hear ofl an experimental scheme in order to compare hand milking against machine milking with regard to cost, efficiency, and cleanliness. It would appear that New Zealand, with its 14,000 milking plants milking well over 600,000 cows every year, could have furnished an expert, or at least have supplied sufficient information to satisfy even the most critical mind aa to the advantages and disadvantages of machine milking.

It must, of course, be borne in mind that the conditions' in Great Britain are entirely different from those in New Zealand. In this country everything is in favour of the milking machine, which, however, cannot be said of the Home Country. Dairy cows in Great Britain are stalled nine months in the year, and are generally milked under the roof where they are stalled. To keep a milking machine in such premises in anything like a reasonable condition would be entirely out of the question.

The suggested experiment wai-s discussed by various speakers, and, replying to the points raised, Sir David Wilson, of Carbeth, who presided, said that the initiation of the scheme did not arise from that board, but from the Board of Agriculture, and if the College would not conduct the research the Board would ask one ot the other colleges to do it. The main object was to determine whether hand milking or machine milking produced the purer milk, and the milk freei from bacteria, but the experiment would also give a certain amount of guidance as to quantity. Principal Patenson said the investigation would involve a great deal of extra work and care, but he thought it would give much useful information They might have to make changes in the scheme during the three years, but they would try to keep the same cows.

ft was ultimately agreed to remit the matter to the Dairy Farm Experiments Committee, and that before tha scheme was finally forwarded to the Scottish Board it should be circulated among certain of. the College governors, who have practical experience, for their suggestions.