THE MILK CONTRACTOR 333 



of the bacterial plates of two dairies showed that over 95 per cent, of the 

 surviving organisms were spore bearers. The use of hypochlorite must 

 be confined to the sterilization of bottles for it attacks tinware rapidly. 

 Bottles that have been put in hypochlorite or bleach, as it is called, should 

 be carefully rinsed lest its unpleasant odor may cling to the bottles and 

 cause complaint on the part of customers. How generally chloride of 

 lime is used by dairymen the writer does not know but is of the opinion 

 that it is comparatively little. It is not at all impossible that in the future 

 it may be employed more commonly. It kills the non-spore-bearing 

 germs, which includes most of the disease germs; consequently, when 

 health officers and others have to disinfect bottles that have been exposed 

 to infection, and no steam is available to do it with the " bleach" is the 

 very thing for the purpose, but the bottles should be rinsed first, because 

 the bleach will exhaust its strength on milk and other organic matter and 

 so lose some of its germicidal power. Also, the bleaching powder must 

 be fresh because it deteriorates rapidly on exposure to air. During the 

 prevalence of foot-and-mouth disease in Illinois in 1915 some of the certi- 

 fied dairies regularly immersed their milk bottles and crates in a solution 

 of chloride of lime. 



Milk Cans. The milk cans are important milk utensils. They have to 

 be strong because they are subjected to merciless treatment. They are 

 made of steel and are heavily plated . All j oints are flooded with solder that 

 there may be no crannies where milk curd may accumulate and germs mul- 

 tiply. The weak points of the can are the neck, the bottom and the breast. 

 The neck is usually double and should be reinforced strongly where it 

 joins the can for great strain comes at this point from piling the cans on 

 top of one another, people standing on the tops, etc. The breast is usu- 

 ally protected by a heavy steel hoop that is soldered onto the outside of 

 the can and the bottom is protected in the same way or by a piece of 

 sheet steel rolled over the body in such a way as to make a projecting 

 bottom rim. The body of the can is stamped out of a single piece of 

 teel. The covers are of two principal types, the slip cover which is the 

 commoner and the umbrella cover which is being adopted because it 

 overhangs the can and protects the top from dirt. Covers are usually 

 made of seamless drawn steel and should be smooth and strong. In 

 New England the 8^- to 10-qt. cans have a handle attached to the neck 

 and breast; the necks are 3^ in. in diameter and are sometimes closed 

 with a tin cover but almost always a stopple or bung of maple or other 

 hardwood is used. These stoppers are absorptive and for that reason 

 are objectionable -on sanitary grounds. The handles of both covers and 

 cans should be rounded and of ample size. As the cans are constantly 

 traveling they should be marked with the owner's name or his trade 

 mark. The most permanent way of marking cans is to emboss the name 

 with a die on the breast, cylinder or neck; less expensively, letters or a name 



