LABOUR AND MILKING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22404, 28 April 1936, Page 15

LABOUR AND MILKING

Sir, —There has been a general agitation lately to keep schoolchildren from milking sheds, and rightly so. With the many makes of modern milking machines now on the market there is absolutely no reason for a schoolchild to £o to the milking shed. If a farmer to-day wants any more than one hand with him in a shed un to 80 cows lie either does not know his job or his milking plant needs to be brought up to date. That is where the new Government can help by seeing that all obsolete milking plants are scrapped and passing legislation to help the farmer to bring his plant up to date and to forbid any schoolchild going to a milking shed. The writer and his wife have for the past five years milked from 80 to 100 cows with the aid of a well-trained dog, and have been among the first in the district to be finished. In my opinion most milking sheds are overstaffed and the milking becomes nobody's job. Milking with a good plant is like a person playing a game of draughts. To be successful in training your cows to milk quickly and give a minimum of stripping you must not have your mind diverted from your job. When our herd is settled down our actual milking time is 80 cows, two and a-quarter hours; 100 cows, three and a-quarter hours. As often as possible we make it a practice to keep to an even time with the milking. It does not matter if it is haytime or not, and our herd will make us pay the penalty if we oversten the rule. Old Timer. -