The first milking machines were built in Europe in the 1890s, and they worked by applying vacuum and pulsation through four teat cups. By the 1920s about half of New Zealand’s cows were milked by machine, rather than the traditional by hand method. The Victory Milking Machine was touted by the Dominion Hardware Company (its maker) as “reliable, simple and efficient” in the Evening Post in June 1916. Milking machines helped to make milking faster and increased the size of dairy herds in New Zealand dramatically.