BUYING MILK AND CREAM 51 



a route with a circuit of twenty-four mlies is the very maximum 

 that can be covered in a day and there is need of frequent days 

 of rest for the horses when the routes cover such wide circuits 

 A good automobile truck can easily make a circuit of fifty miles 

 per day, thereby covering a vastly greater territory and hauling 

 to the creamery a much larger volume of cream. The cost of 

 hauling by truck, when the truck is manned by a competent man. 

 the country is reasonably level and the roads good, is no greater 

 than the cost of hauling by team. In the case of an incompetent 

 driver, however, the repairs may vastly increase the expense of 

 hauling by automobile truck. In a hilly country and in^a country 

 with poor roads there usually are times of the year when the 

 truck cannot be used and it is necessary to do the hauling by 

 team. 



Not all cream secured by the route system is hauled direct 

 to the creamery. Many routes do not terminate at the creamery 

 but have their circuit at a considerable distance from the cream- 

 ery and the hauler ships the cream at the conclusion of the 

 day's work to the creamery by rail. 



The Skimming Station and Cream Station System. In the 

 days of the whole-milk creamery and the use of the centrifugal 

 factory separator, the creameries, in an effort to expand their 

 milk supply territory, established skimming stations located at 

 a convenient hauling distance or at a reasonable shipping dis- 

 tance. The farmers brought their milk to these skimming sta- 

 tions, where it was skimmed and tested, and from where the 

 cream was hauled or shipped to the central creamery. 



With the advent and use of the farm separator the skim- 

 ming station gradually disappeared and the cream station took 

 its place. In this case the farmers skim their cream on the 

 farm and haul it to the cream station and the cream station 

 ships it to the creamery. Within recent years the cream sta- 

 tion system has developed very rapidly and today tens of thou- 

 sands of these cream stations are in operation, especially in the 

 central and far west of this continent. 



The cream station has been a tremendous factor in develop- 

 ing the business of milking cows, especially in sections of the 

 country with a relatively thin cow population, where herds are 



