FARM AND DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 81899, 8 December 1906, Page 2

FARM AND DAIRY.

Many years of thought and experiment have been devoted to the production of machinery for the milking of ows. Machine after machine has jeen designed, used, and discarded and improved, until to -day we have the problem solved and machines that do the work the inventors meant them for. The' age of experimenting has gone, and the milking machine is an accomplished fact, a commercial success. Farmers, many of them, looked askance at the new invention, as has been the rule since machinery was first invented. A speedy failure was predicted, but the good machines are getting hold of the market, and the number of installations increase week by week. Taranaki is among the districts that welcomed the innovation, all the more heartily perhaps on account of the difliculty of fecuiring reliable and ellieient milkers for the farm, There are now about a thousand Lawrence - Kennedy - Gillies milking machines at work-in various parts of Australia, and of these 401 are working in this colony. The first machines in New Zealand were erected in 1902, one plant of two machines in Taranaki, two machines in Wellington province and four in Otago. Taranaki farmers purchased eleven in 1004, twenty-six in IUOS, and this year no less than 127 machines have been installed on 54 iarms. "L-K-G." machines are now running on (19 Taranaki farms, the total number of machines being 100. Auckland district, with its rapidly grow'ing dairy industry, conies second with 30 plants of 133 machines altogether. Six!) 4 machines have) been installed this year, Otago took four in J902, eight in 1904, twelve in 1005, and sixty-one this year, a total of 85; and there are seventy-seven now at work in the Wellington province, of which 08 were installed for the present season. In Taranaki the machines are driven by steam, and oil engines, and by water-power, the latter being preferred wherever obtainable on account of it.i cheapness and plcntitude. In the Waimate Plains district electric motors are in vogue. A "News" reporter visited Mr R. C. demon's farm o,t Oniata on Thursday afternoon, and found the owner just making a start with the milking operations. For the visitor's benefit he explained the si.mple construction of the machine. It consists of a small portable apparatus termed a pulsator, placed on the top of a specially fashioned, milk pail, which is Uermat'ically sealed. Each prtlsator milks two cows, the teats being held in cups which are connected with Uie pulsator by india-rubber tubing. Another llexiblc connection puts the exterior of the pail into communication with a vacuum pipe extending through the cow-shed, and which is connected with an air exhauster, by which means the air is exhausted from the milk pail and the .pnifSator is actuated. The pulsatoi; in its turn operates the teat cups, which, by a series of contractions s,nd expansions, manipulate U-jvts similarly to a calf, (mil thus extract the milk which flows into the pail. In this instance tho vacuum-producer is worked by an oil engine. Mr Clemon is highly pleased with the work of the machine, Perhaps the matter of prime importance with milk is cleanliness. The machine obviates all handling of the teats, there is no possibility of dust or hair or any other impurity or atmospheric influence,s contaminating the milk, for it flows direct into a hermetically sealed pail.

flier" ' wa9 no Yongj! handling by illtempered milkers, uo gore quarters pi [f>re uddej'B. Mr Clemow, in answer to a further question, said there was a big saving of time and wages as the i;osult of using the machines, A hundred cows were put through in an average of about two hours and a half, and he estimated that he could materially ijr.provc this in a few days by fixing tlie new style of pulsators." The stall consists of two men and a boy. The shed is one of the best probably in the colony. The floor is entirely of concrete, so formed as to ensure any liipiid refuse running away and to facilitate cleansing daily. Witter ia laid on for this purpose. Patent eowha/iis are in use, and the cows when milked leave the shed by means of doors opened out just at the head of the and like the bails, operated from behind the animal, so that from the cow couics in it is not necessary to approach her head. The shed is well ventilated, and may fairly be taken as a pattern or model.

There every indication that next season will see a very large number ot milking machines installed in all parts of Taranaki.