THE MILK CONTRACTOR 



319 



1. By large automatic machines that fill and cap the bottles in the case, a full case 

 at a time. 



2. Rotary types of fillers and cappers that work automatically but in which the 

 bottles are filled and capped out of their cases and afterwards returned to them. 



3. Machines that fill and cap the bottles in the case but that are operated by hand 

 levers instead of automatically. Many of these machines fill a case of pint bottles at 

 one end and a case of quarts at the other. 



4. Machines that fill the bottles as in the third method but leave the capping to be 

 done by hand. 



The method of both filling and capping by, hand was not studied. 



In figuring costs, the labor, cost was obtained by dividing the total 

 amount expended for labor at all the plants by the total number of bot- 

 tles that were filled and capped at the same number of plants. The 

 number of bottles filled and capped per man per hour was determined by 

 dividing the total number of bottles filled at all the plants by the total 

 number of men-hours used at the same number of plants. The results 

 are shown in Table 89. 



TABLE 89. THE COMPARATIVE COST OF FILLING MILK BOTTLES AND CAPPING THEM 

 WITH DIFFERENT TYPES OF MACHINES (U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE) 



The table shows that there is considerable variation in labor costs at 

 the different plants using the same types of -machinery. The cost of hand 

 capping, on the average, was much higher than machine capping but in 

 some cases the labor cost of capping the bottles by hand was nearly as 

 cheap as by machine. In plants where capping is done by hand the grade 

 of labor employed largely influences the cost; some men can cap bottles 

 nearly as fast as the machine fills them while others cannot. The average 

 cost with the rotary fillers is somewhat less than with the machine fillers 

 and the variation in cost at the different plants is less but the bottom price 

 of machine filling is less than that of rotary filling. In explanation of 

 these facts it is offered that in the plants using the rotary fillers, wages 

 were lower than in plants using the machine fillers; the rotaries were of 

 about the same type and capacity whereas the machine fillers differed 

 greatly in these respects. Had all the stationary fillers been of the most 

 efficient type and had they been run in the best possible manner the 

 costs would have been materially less than shown in the table. Instan- 

 ces were found where the costs with the machine fillers were less than were 



