836 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



is uotliing- instruetive iu these French creameries and they are 

 hardly worth a visit. 



Paris and its milk suppl}', with the producing farms, are the next 

 form of dairying to be considered. The main point of interest is 

 the endeavor to conduct the milk service of this great city almost 

 entirely without provisions for cooling milk, on the farms, during 

 transportation or in the city, either by dealers or consumers. Fail- 

 ure to give satisfaction to anybody is the natural result and sweet 

 milk is a rare article in Paris, during warm weather, excepting two 

 or three hours immediately after the deliveries, which take place 

 twice a day and sometimes thrice. A few of the largest milk supply 

 companies keep cool milk at their city depots when they succeed in 

 bringing it sweet from the farms, and there are a very few milk 

 farms, fairly up-to-date along some lines, within easy access from 

 Paris. Such an one is the celebrated Farm of Arcy in Brie, where 

 about 200 cows are kept, and which was the first, so far as known, 

 to regularly deliver milk to city consumers in sealed glass or 

 porcelain vessels of small size. The Arcy sealed jar of white 

 opaque glass, holding one litre (or large quart) first appeared in 

 Paris in the year 1873. This is still in use, notwithstanding its 

 great weight and its clumsy metallic cover. At this farm and very 

 generally in connection with the city milk supply of Paris, the chief 

 reliance for preserving milk is pasteurization. 



It is well worthy of note that at a special show of perishable 

 dairy products held as an annex to the Paris Exposition, in July, 

 1900, just outside the city limits, where French producers had every 

 opportunity of exhibiting their goods in the best possible shape 

 (although under favorable local conditions after reaching the ex- 

 hibit), there was a large collection of natural milk and cream. But 

 the only samples of these products, absolutely free from chemical 

 preservations, and uncooked, which were sweet and palatable after 

 noon of the exhibition day, were from dairies in New York and 

 New Jersey, then eighteen days from the cow! There was also in 

 the United States dairy exhibit, natural milk and cream from a farm 

 in Central Illinois, in bottles exactly as sent daily to Chicago fam- 

 ilies, which was only very slightly acid, although twenty days old. 

 It had kept sweet until the day before this show, and even later it 

 was better than the best normal French milk onl}^ twelve to twenty- 

 four hours after milking. The American products had been pre- 

 served solely by cleanliness and cold. 



In the northern part of France, or the territory lying between 

 Paris and the Belgium border, the dairy industry is not especially 

 developed and presents little of interest. Large farms abound in 

 that region, with extensive cultivation of wheat, barley, grass, 

 sugar beets and potatoes. Almost every estate has some industry, 



