CITY MILK SUPPLY 



The milk business is not the farmer's business, nor the contractor's, nor yet the 



consumer's; it is the community's business, and unless the members of the 



community work together for good milk, they will never get it. 



CHAPTER I 

 MILK 



The city milk business of the United States is a development of the past 

 75 years. Prior to 1840 very little milk was shipped by rail; practically 

 all of it was brought by wagons from farms in the surrounding country 

 or was produced within city limits. At that time no city in the country 

 had a population of half a million. Boston had about 100,000 inhabi- 

 tants and New York City about 300,000. However, the largest cities 

 were beginning to find the local sources of milk supply inadequate and 

 were reaching out for country milk. By 1843 many farmers within 50 

 miles of Boston were shipping milk regularly by rail to the city and soon 

 other cities got increasingly large amounts of milk in the same way. The 

 business was a new one and naturally those who were engaged in it han- 

 dled it in a crude way. Abuses crept in and became so flagrant that about 

 1860 the first attempts were made to regulate it, by discouraging the 

 practices of skimming and watering. Apparently they were only partially 

 successful. Meanwhile the milk business .grew to importance without 

 exciting more than a grumbling interest on the part of the public. How- 

 ever, it was about to enter a new era. In the period from 1885 to 1890 

 the regular collection of milk samples became common and the acceptance 

 of the germ theory of disease led to the tracing of certain outbreaks of con- 

 tagion to milk supplies. Soon, the medical profession, milk producers 

 and the public recognized that the milk business must be reformed and 

 put on a basis which would make the products above reproach. Regula- 

 tion was undertaken with assurance and in a cavalier spirit but after many 

 disappointments and bitter controversies it was gradually perceived 

 ,that all concerned had much to learn before the problem of delivering 

 immense quantities of good safe milk could be solved. Investigations 

 of different phases of the question were made by physicians, bacteri- 

 ologists, chemists, health officers, economists, engineers, railroad men, 

 dairymen, lawyers and others. Manufacturers of dairy machinery so im- 

 proved the devices used as to make the handling of milk cleaner and safer. 



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