78 



CHAPTER V. 



THE CITY MILK SUPPLY. 



The daily inilk consumption in the United States of Amer- 

 ica does not aggregate less than 5,000,000 gallons. It takes 

 about 2,000,000 cows to produce this, and an army of 200,000 

 men to care for them and milk them. So this is no insignificant 

 industry and it deseryes more attention than it has had up 

 to date. We have in the States twelve dairy papers, and only 

 two of them are exclusively devoted to city milk supply The 

 "Milk News/' of Chicago, and the "'Milk Reporter, 7 ' Decker- 

 town, N. Y. 



Owing to the rapid development of railroad facilities ra- 

 diating from all our great cities, the aspect of the city milk 

 supply has changed greatly from the time when the source 

 of supply of a necessity was very limited. It makes but little 

 difference now whether the milk is produced within a few 

 miles or within seventy, eighty, or even two hundred miles. 

 With refrigerator cars the milk hauled 100 miles by rail is 

 often better off than that hauled 10 to 12 miles by team. 



KEEPING ACCOUNTS. 



Hence producers of milk are now virtually compelled to 

 base their prices on the price of butter or cheese and no com- 

 bination of producers will ~be strong enough to ensure a hie/her 

 price than that with a reasonable addition for the necessary ex- 

 tra expenses. If this is correct and I challenge anybody to 

 prove it otherwise then the producers of milk for city con- 

 sumption must (like those producing it for butter and cheese) 

 carefully study the problem of cheaper milk production, 

 economy in marketing and reduction of unavoidable losses. 



Cheaper milk production depends first of all on the kind 

 of cows kept, and while many farmers may make a pretty 



