246 CITY MILK SUPPLY 



Minimum Requirements for a City Milk Plant. Sooner or later in 

 every city the question arises as to what the law shall require in the sim- 

 plest and least expensive milk plants. The answer which the practical 

 experience of those cities that have studied the problem seems to give is 

 that these plants should have at least three rooms, namely; a boiler room, 

 a washroom and a milk-handling room with refrigerators or other provi- 

 sion for keeping the milk cool. The arrangement of these plants should 

 be such that the dirt of the boiler room shall be confined there and that 

 the bottling room shall be effectively isolated from the litter, steam and 

 odors of the washroom. 



Environment of the Milk Plant. With these general observations on 

 country and city milk plants we may proceed to more particular considera- 

 tion of city plants and the handling of milk therein. In the first place, 

 it should be noted that the environment of a milk plant is important; it 

 should be put where it will be as free as possible from contaminating 

 surroundings. Badly built latrines, hog pens, chicken yards, manure 

 heaps and surface drains carrying slops and excrementitious matter are 

 all to be avoided. There should be abundance of sunlight because work 

 can be better and more cheerily done in a well-lighted plant than in a dark 

 one, because sunlight has some disinfecting value and because of the ad- 

 vertising value that good lighting has. One of the large plants of the 

 central west is widely known as the " sunlight dairy" and a large con- 

 tractor in Philadelphia makes an attractive appeal to the public through 

 a picture showing the situation of his plant next to a fine public park. 

 Pure air is essential; to locate a plant in a district where noisome odors 

 prevail is poor policy and it is important that the air be free from dust. 

 Unpaved streets are usually very dusty and so are to be avoided in choos- 

 ing the site for a milk plant as, for the same reasons, are the much-traveled 

 thoroughfares of the city. However, the plant must be where these main 

 avenues of distribution and the lines over which the milk comes to the 

 city are easily and quickly reached. In some of the large cities the air 

 entering the plants is filtered or washed. 



General Plan of the Milk Plant. The layout of a plant should be such 

 that the milk can be handled with ease, certainty, and economy. A poorly 

 designed plant results in unnecessary labor and expense because it 

 compels extra handling of the milk and long time-consuming trips from 

 one part of the building to another. In small plants there should be a 

 separate washroom, boiler room, milk-handling room and refrigerating 

 room. Large plants should have a boiler room or power plant, a receiving 

 room, washroom, milk-handling room, refrigerating room and sales room. 

 The rooms for receiving and for handling the milk should have a minimum 

 of piping. The absence of toilet conveniences for the employees should 

 be regarded as a serious defect but water closets should not communicate 

 with any room in which milk is handled; latrines should be 100 ft. from 



