The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1907-11-28
Electricity On a Dairy Farm.
The Labor in Many Of the Necessary Farm Operations Much
Reduced and the Hired Man Not Greatly Missed
WILLIAM p. DOYLE.


Miner has not come to the belief that
cattle do well or enjoy life as much
on cold concrete floors. A pit back
of the cows is so graded that all
waste is carried off by flushing to
large tank, the contents OF which
are then used for fertilizing. Pat
ent swing stanchions are used
which allow the greatest freedom for
the cattle's heads, whether standing
or lying down. All the milking is
very successfully and quickly done by
electrically driven milking machines,
which Mr.. Miner says give satisfac-
ton in every way.
In the creamery, where the milk
from dairy of twenty cows is daily
transformed into butter, is milk
separator, the heavy bowl OF which
must be made to revolve at a speed
of 7400 revolutions a minute each
morning and evening, till the entire
milk production of the COWS has gone
through IL. Before installing electric
power this laborious work had to be
done by hand and was counted part
of the hardest farm work. With that
was the big churn, which for an hour
at time, several days a week. de-
manded the strenuous attention of
some muscular person who no doubt
could have been profitably spending
his time at some other less laborious
work. All that work must be done
away with, so a wire was run into
the creamery, and on a concrete foun-
dation half-horsepower motor was
placed and connected From this mo-
tor narrow belt was run to the
separator. Then the churn was
placed on a platform swivelled from
one corner to the floor, the other
three corners resting on casters. This
arrangement permitted the churn to
be swung into line with the motor
and connected by belt when the churn
is to be used. After the churning
is completed the belt is stripped off
and the churn pushed back out of the
way.
In a room adjoining the creamery
was the grindstone, that torturous,
back breaking arrangement that
every farmer boy has cause to re-
member, especially his associations
with 1t about harvesting time. That
was a simple matter for Mr.. Miner.
He ran a small round belt from the
motor through the open door and
around a pulley on the axle of the
stone, and labor on that crank was
at an end, the old Oriskany running
1t more smoothly than it could be
done by hand, and with no COM
plants.
All around the farm are many me-
chanical contrivances that show con-
siderable study, thought and ingenu-
ity, and one of the cleverest of these
is on the separator. When the milk
has all passed through the machine
the latter should be stopped and
rinsed. To accomplish this auto
matically a float is connected with
the electric current operating the mo-
tor In such manner that when the
milk is all run out of the separator
the float is lowered to a point where
1t breaks the circuit, cutting off the
power and stopping the machinery.
simultaneously with the breaking of
the current dish of water, previous
ly placed above the separator, is emp
tied by an ingenious device into the
separator before 1t has ceased to re-
volve, and the large machine is
thoroughly rinsed. Thus the sepa-
rator is made to stop at the moment
to the indispensable work of rinsing
itself out properly.
A hand pump had been in use to
force water into a reservoir in the
attic of the house, which supplied the
bathroom, and then a motor was
brought into use which did away with
the work of pumping. A larger mo-
tor was secured and placed in posi-
tion in the woodward. A circular saw
and frame were provided and wood
in sled lengths is brought from the
wood lots in winter and is piled up
to await the time when it is con-
venlent to reduce 1t tc stove wood
by the aid of the Oriskany Creek.
In the tightening of labor on the
farm Mr.. Miner did not for a minute
neglect the part performed by wo-
men, and his constant thought has
been to help his good wife in her
work. Electric fiatirons and elec-
trically driven sewing machines are
among the results in the house. In
the dining rooms are electric fans,
which ventilate and cool the house
in the warm weather, and even the
ice cream freezer has a belt and
motor.
Life on a farm under the fore.
going conditions carries with 1t about
as much comfort, contentment and
ease as life anywhere under normal
conditions can offer, and Mr.. Miner
and his family enjoy it to the utmost.
and it also helps to solve the labor
problem and keeps the boys content
ed at home.
The cost of equipping a farm In
that manner must be no small item,
but on that point Mr.. Miner was
silent, He declined to give any fig.
ures. but the results are all so salts.
factory that 1t is doubtful il he
would go back to the old methods OF
farming for FIVE times what the new
method has cost him. - New York
Tribune Farmer.
Dairying in New Zealand.
IL. Q I.