Milking Machine.

Kaikoura Star, Volume XIV, Issue 680, 6 February 1894, Page 4

Milking Machine.

(‘ Lyttelton Times, Feb 3)

Messrs Ritchie, Valentine and Sawers, accompanied by Mr John Ferguson, a director of the Central Dairy Company, and Mr M. Murphy, Secretary of the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association, yesterday visited Mr Reuben Withell’s farm at Brookside, where they were joined by several of the leading dairy farmers of the Ellesmere district. A careful examination was made of the cows which have been milked for various periods up to three months by the Brookside patent milker, and they were found to be thoroughly sound in every respect, the milking machine not having had the slightest injurious effect upon them. The cows were then milked, and after the machine had done its work each cow was * stripped ’ by Mr Sawers, when only a small additional quantity of milk was obtained, tbe most of it from one fretful, recently calved cow. Examination of the animals after milking was as satisfactory as before. The official visitors were much impressed by the machine as a labour-saving adjunct to dairying, and Messrs Sawers and Valentine, with one Government veterinary surgeon, will take an early opportunity of seeing it in operation at the usual time of milking and without tbe disturbing presence of numerous onlookers. Much interest was taken by the visitors in the great ingenuity displayed by Messrs Withell and Sons in the many mechanical appliances about their homestead.