242 CITY MILK SUPPLY 



Advantages of City Milk Plants. The system of building milk plants 

 in the city is older than that of locating them in the country; it had its 

 origin in the simple fact that the first city dealers had to have a place to 

 care for the milk they received from the country and headquarters for 

 the transaction of business. As business grew, so did the plants, for more 

 space was required for handling the milk and for years there was no at- 

 tempt of the contractor to extend his operations into the country. In 

 time, however, country plants were developed, largely because certain 

 firms that were making condensed milk and that were also in the city 

 milk business found a portion of the latter could be profitably carried on 

 from the dairy centers they had built up around their condenseries. 

 This led to a comparison of the merits of country and of city milk plants. 

 In favor of the latter it was found that the business of several dairy 

 districts can be concentrated in a single plant and that they possessed 

 certain other advantages. Milk cars will not hold as many gallons of 

 bottled milk as of milk in cans and the glass bottles and cases weigh more 

 than the cans required for an equal quantity of milk, consequently it 

 costs more per pound to transport bottled milk than bulk milk. The 

 outlay for bottles and cases is necessarily greater when milk is shipped in 

 bottles than when in cans for there must be in addition to the bottles 

 and cases required for daily delivery in the city enough more in transit 

 to assure an adequate supply in both city and country. As there is 

 more glassware in daily circulation the breakage bill is higher in the sys- 

 tem of country plants. Broadly speaking small country plants are not 

 run on such a high plane of efficiency or at such low cost as large city 

 ones. There is a saving of time in the city from having the milk arrive 

 from the country bottled and ready for distribution but this is offset by 

 the delay at the country end that may arise from irregular delivery of 

 milk at the plant by the farmers and certainly does so from the fact 

 that small pasteurizing units cannot handle the output as rapidly as 

 large ones. Moreover, interruption of service either through breaking 

 down of the machinery or other causes may be serious enough to make the 

 milk miss the train entirely which is not likely to occur when the milk is 

 shipped in cans to city plants. Thus the milk available for city delivery 

 may be curtailed, and inconvenience the customer, with consequent loss 

 of trade to the contractor, whereas if the milk train is late the worst 

 that is likely to happen is the loss of a few hours time in the plants. 

 However, by good management many country milk plants are regularly 

 supplying milk to the city without interruptions occurring. City plants, 

 too, have perhaps been unconsciously favored by boards of health be- 

 cause at less cost a more constant and so a more thorough supervision 

 can be maintained over them than over country plants. 



General Features of City Milk Plants. City milk plants are usually 

 located near railroad terminals but there is developing a tendency to 



