524 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



It is in fact in the plotting of these routes — each separate milk business 

 of course having the right to cover the same city area with its wagons— 

 rhar the uu>st harshly critioizeii feature of the city milk business arisess 

 "Cross hauls" as the circumstance is named of having many i\nites cross 

 ing and recrossing each other upon the same street, has long been blamec 

 by the wrathful public as the greatest wasteful expense in milk distribu- 

 tion. Quite at variance with this popular belief, however, are the data 

 with regard to milk delivery expenses in Detroit. Here it was shown 

 that in 1915 the average costs of delivering a bottle was close to one and 

 one-half cents — certainly not an enormous expense when compared with 

 the trouble of helping one's self. 



The functions of the milk plant itself when summed up in a single 

 statement may be given as follows : To assemble the milk from the 

 country, to suitably process and bottle it and tiually to deliver it in 

 response to the consumer's neeils. These services are of a very modern 

 origin. The early sources of city milk supply were from nearby herds — • 

 even, indeed from cows kept within the city itself — but with the demands 

 of a growing city population, larger and larger amounts of milk were 

 brought from distant places and the city milk plant came to be. 



Upon arrival from the railroad station then at the modern city dis- 

 tributins: plant the milk is tirst claritied bv removing anv traces of dirt 

 which may remain after the transportation from the country. Imme- 

 diately it is then pasteurized through slowly undergoing suitable heat 

 to eliminate possible disease germs. Thence it is refrigerated to preserve 

 it in the pure condition reacheil by pasteurization. Finally it is enclosed 

 in the popularly acceptable pint or quart glass bottle, and is set aside 

 in cold storage awaiting the call of the delivery wagon. Milk processing 

 of this sort though expensive, is justified in the product and has done 

 much to establish this food in the same esteem at the table of the citv 

 dweller that it has long had in the dietary of the farmer. 



Naturally the costs and expenses of carrying on a business of this 

 sort are similar to those found elsewhere in carrying on manufactories 

 of like size and capitalization. Among the particular wastes charged 

 against the business; that of bottle breakage or loss seems especially 

 large. On the average a bottle lasts approximately 22 days so that 

 a dealer with a daily 10.000 bottle distribution would, at the price these 

 containers are usually held of 5 cents each, suffer roundly an expense 

 of ?2o.00 per day. Methods of paring down this great loss do not seem 

 to come readily to hand. Xon-transparent containers are not seemingly 

 welcomed by the consumers so that bottle expense threatens to remain 

 a fixed cost in the milk distributing business. 



No other waste or ''dead loss'' expenses burdens the dealer so heavily, 

 however, as does the familiar competitive one of over-stocking iu order to 

 have supply enough for all possil>le demands. ^Milk surplus, as this excess 

 is named, is peculiarly typical of the city milk business. Other merchants 

 mav lav in their stocks of snoods from dav to dav at will. Thev mav 

 countermand orders at the last moment or may store their over supplies. 

 But none of these choices are open to the city milk dealer. In order to 

 have an adequate supply of milk for all possible demands he must mak€ 

 contracts mouths in advance of delivery for the entire output from herds. 

 He must stand by these contracts whether demand for milk keeps up 

 or has ceased and he may not preserve his surplus in cold storage because 

 citv ordinances allow tlie sale onlv of fresh milk. 



