MILKING MACHINES

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21225, 23 September 1940, Page 9

MILKING MACHINES

(To the Editor) Sir, —Recently I saw something in the press regarding standardisation of milking machines, and there are one or two questions I would like to ask through the medium of your correspondence column. To go into a farmer’s milking shed and see cows milked by machinery has always had a great fascination for me, and it seems something almost human. It is always interesting to look back over the years and bring to mind the changes that have occurred as witnessed at the Waikato Winter Shows over the last 20 years. The questions I would like answered are somewhat difficult to put into words, but perhaps they will suggest themselves to some person whose eye may catch this letter, and may be, would kindly answer, or at least give some answer to what is meant by standardising milking machines. I have accompanied several of my farmer friends when considering the purchase of a milking machine at a winter show, and in this way I feel to have acquired a certain education regarding the pros and cons of milking cows. Invariably the impression I have received has been that if it were possible my friends would rather have their herds milked by hand, which fact has always suggested to me that there is evidently something lacking in the process of milking cows by machines. To my mind it appears obvious there are certain things on a milking machine which surely could be standardised, such as milk piping, for instance, yet I have heard some manufacturers disputing this point. Then we see releasers for delivering the milk while maintaining the vacuum in the system. Here again I have heard arguments regarding this part of a machine and claims are made that some do not froth the milk, or knock it about, to the injury of butterfat globules, etc., etc., so one wonders if this can be standardised.

I have had to smile at some of the arguments put forward by enthusiastic young salesmen, but the part that has always interested me more than all else is the teat cup, the thing that actually takes the milk from the cow, and when a friend asked me what I thought about machines my reply was that as far

as I could ascertain it is the part that touches and operates on the vital part of a cow that matters most. When I look back and remember the dozens of cups that have appeared on the market, I would like someone to tell me how to arrive at the standardisation of what to me appears to be the most important part of a machine, in conjunction with the mechanisation that operates the cup, a pulsator, and these have been legion.

I hope that something I have written may bring to light some useful information on the standardisation idea, which may hinder further developments in the direction of obtaining perfection, or have the developments of milking cows by machinery overshot the right road to the said perfection? I think as far as I can understand that this matter is vital to the dairying industry and needs careful attention.— I am, etc.. CRUX CRITICORUM Hamilton. September 21.