MILKING BY MACHINES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4799, 16 January 1925, Page 3

MILKING BY MACHINES.

. LOSS OF BETTER-FAT. . INTERESTING EXPERIMENTS. Like a great number of our modern devices the milking machine has gradually conn into common use among the dairying farmers, and for anything but small herds they are now' calculated to be indispensible. •The machines save hours of slavery ■ and have been brought so near to perthat the cows puffer no ill-effects ■ from their use. That there is still room for improvement, however, has simple experiments carried out by a . < Morrinsville farmer with the cop operation of a herd testing officer. These experiments also show that the old-fashioned way of milking by hand is, after all, most effective, producing so much more butter-fat from the cows that a man could i educe his f herd by a third and'send to the fac--J tory the same quantity of butter-fat. ' This par titular farm-

er commenced testing this season by machine milking at each test. He has a good grade Jersey herd of 30 cows, and during the first two months when the-herd wHs machine milked at testing time all tests were below 4.>, and a great number below 3. The third month he h.and milked the whole herd for the tests, which in each case showed a remarkable increase, this being by no means the normal increase. The average increase was in the vicinity of 10 points in the test. The following month the whole herd was again hand milked, the higher tests being maintained and showing the normal increase with the advancement of the seiison.

This month (January) the farmer decided to further experiment by milking half the herd by hand and half by the machine. The tests of the former showed increases of a few points (the normal increases), while the tests of the latter half of the herd showed an average decrease of seven points. The highest test of the handmilked cows wais 7.3.

As a result of these experiments the farmer has come to the conclusion that if he milked 20 cows by hand instead of 30 by the machine, he would obtain just as much butter-fat and would be able to graze his cows on a smaller holding. These experiments, however, might be carried further, and, instead of milking at each testing time by hand, conduct the hand milking over a period of days in order to ascertain whether or not the occasional hand milking would give the higher testa and whether these high tests would be obtained for that period bf days.