CHAPTER VI 

 THE MILK CONTRACTOR 



Advent of the City Milk Problem. Dairying is one of the oldest 

 arts of the human race. It is not known when man began to keep 

 milk-giving animals but records show that dairying was practised 

 in India 1,500 years and in Egypt 2,000 years before Christ. Like the 

 origin of dairying itself, that of the problem of public milk supply is lost 

 in antiquity. It is conceivable that as long as man led a nomadic life 

 the art did not exist but it must have appeared soon after he established 

 fixed abodes and have become pressingly important wherever he built 

 large cities. The complexity of the question has increased apace with 

 advancing civilization till in modern times its solution severely tests man's 

 highest abilities and involves large amounts of capital. In the United 

 States the transition from rural to urban communities was rapid, conse- 

 quently the problem of city milk supply suddenly loomed large so that 

 Americans are apt to think it new, whereas it is very old. 



Though the change has come quietly, it has been a matter of years 

 and though our oldest cities have been struggling with the problem since 

 the middle of the last century and even earlier, in its modern aspect it 

 has forced itself to the front only within the last 25 years, so that it belongs 

 peculiarly to the present generation. It is easy to trace its development. 



In small country towns most families have their own cows; those that 

 do not depend on a neighbor for their milk supply, as a rule calling at the 

 farm for their milk. There is no milkman and the amount of milk that 

 can be purchased is very limited. Indeed summer visitors and others, 

 in such places, often experience considerable difficulty in getting milk 

 at all. As these villages grow, the demand for milk becomes large enough 

 to encourage some farmer to embark in the milk business. As trade 

 increases, he finds that he cannot raise enough milk and buys of other 

 farmers. Thus in embryo the milk contractor appears, and some of the 

 evils of contracting begin, for the milkman rarely has any control over 

 the farmer and the latter seldom gets enough for his milk to encourage 

 him either to improve the conditions under which it is produced or to 

 take special care of it. Such as it is, it is accepted as the best obtainable 

 by the milkman, but it is very apt to be disposed of to the customers who 

 take little milk and to those who are poor pay. The growth of the village 

 into a town or small city increases the demand for milk and the success 

 of the one milkman tempts others to start in the business. It may be 



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