THE MILK CONTRACTOR 339 



Refrigeration in the Home. Milk dealers are interested not only in 

 the refrigeration that their producers and they themselves use but they 

 are also in that in the homes of their customers for the best milk will spoil 

 soon after delivery unless it is kept cold. 



Williams made an extensive investigation of the facilities for keeping 

 perishable foods in the homes of Rochester, N. Y., and found that they 

 were generally preserved in a cool place in the cellar, in living rooms or in 

 ice boxes. He came to the conclusion that in one-half of the homes the 

 cellar and pantry were relied on to preserve food and that in three-quarters 

 of the homes ice was taken for only a few weeks in mid-summer. He stud- 

 ied 243 refrigerators and found that only 103 maintained a temperature 

 of less than 50F. ; the other 143 had higher temperatures and were worth- 

 less for preserving food. The better refrigerators were in the better 

 homes but in 45 per cent, of the homes of this class the refrigerators 

 showed temperatures of over 50 while in the homes of the working people 

 over 70 per cent. did. 



Economy in the Use of Steam. One of the items of expense in the 

 city milk business is the cost of cleaning and sterilizing the utensils and 

 with the larger dealers this is augmented by the necessity of generating 

 power to run separators, clarifiers, filling and capping machines, pumps 

 and pasteurizing machinery. The very smallest dealers get on by heating 

 the water they need over stoves but this is tedious work, consequently only 

 a very few use enough water. So, boards of health are taking the ground 

 that a gas heater or a steam boiler must be used. Indeed, all dairymen 

 who are conducting a business of any considerable size have steam boilers 

 and the larger dealers have big power plants with steam boilers, steam 

 engines, gas engines and dynamos. It is apparent that the chances of 

 incurring loss in this part of the business are good. Waste of fuel, 

 lubricants and other supplies is bound to occur unless guarded against. 

 Incompetent operation of the plant is likely to cause rapid depreciation 

 of the machinery and excessive repair bills. Losses occur, too, from poor 

 layout of the plant and from failure to utilize all the heat or power in 

 the steam. 



Retail Delivery of Milk. The delivery of milk has undergone a great 

 change within a few years. Prior to the introduction of the glass bottle 

 the dealer carried his milk in bulk in large tin cans on the wagon and 

 appeared at the door with the can over his arm and a quart measure in 

 his hand ready to deliver the amount of milk the customer needed for 

 the day. At a little later period in place of the dozen or two cans of milk, 

 there were placed in the front of the wagon, two huge ones with stirrers 

 and faucets out of which the milk was drawn into a measure. There 

 were three principal objections to the delivery of milk in bulk, namely: 

 that through carelessness or design one customer got richer milk than 

 another; that the milk was seriously contaminated from repeated ex- 



