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CITY MILK SUPPLY 



The result of all these forces is that in the last 25 years, there has emerged 

 a new art, city milk supply, still far from perfect but which is advancing 

 steadily. 



Importance of the Dairy Industry. Progress is being made along 

 several different lines. Chemists are studying the composition of milk 

 and the changes it undergoes in being made into various sorts of dairy 

 products. Farmers are improving their herds and introducing more 

 sanitary and economical methods of dairying. Railroads are solving 

 the problems that arise in transporting milk and contractors, those that 

 attend the gathering and distributing of enormous quantities of milk. 

 Health officers are working out rational methods of milk control and the 

 general public through various organizations of citizens, in whatever way 

 it can, is helping to develop this important business. 



It is estimated that in 1914 there were 20,737,000 dairy cows in the 

 United States and that their total value was $1,118,487,000. The whole 

 quantity of milk used raw on farms, raw in villages, as market milk in 

 cities, in condenseries, for the manufacture of butter and cheese on the 

 farm and in butter and cheese factories, is estimated at 9 billion gallons 

 or 77.4 billion pounds per annum, to which should be added the milk used 

 for feeding calves and other stock and that used in small quantities for 

 other purposes. Of this milk, the market milk consumed in cities of 

 over 2,500 inhabitants is 1 billion gallons or 8.6 billion pounds and, assum- 

 ing the consumption per capita to be the same in villages of less than 2,500, 

 the total use of milk therein amounts to 600,000 million gallons or 5.16 

 billion pounds. 



Consumption of Milk in the United States. The consumption of 

 market milk in cities of the United States is often taken at 0.6 pt. per 

 capita but this is a crude figure and is usually arrived at by dividing the 

 total amount of milk distributed daily by the total population. The 

 truth is, the wealthy and well-to-do get more milk than the poorer people 

 so that the amount of milk used by the average citizen is considerably 

 less than 0.6 pt. In order to get information concerning the use of milk 

 in the home, Williams made a careful study of 15 sections of Rochester, 

 N. Y. Each section differed from the others, in wealth, social position 

 or nationality and all together they embraced over 5,000 or about one- 

 tenth of the homes of the city. The result of the study is given in Table 

 1. It shows that the population of children under 5 years of age was 

 greater among the poor than among the well-to-do. The consumption of 

 milk by 21,600 people was 5,278 qt. of milk per day or at the rate of but 

 little more than 0.24 pt. per capita. The poor not only used less milk 

 and bought it in smaller quantities than the well-to-do but the use of 

 store milk and of condensed milk was largely confined to the laboring 

 classes. 



