FROZEN MILK. 173 



many weeks, and subsequently, when delivered to the cus- 

 tomer and allowed to thaw, be in as fresh condition as at the 

 outset. 



The method of freezing the milk is not always the same. 

 The low temperature necessary is produced by one of the 

 artificial ice-making machines. The milk is frozen in special 

 cans, which are commonly cubical in shape and thus con- 

 veniently packed away, and easily allow the frozen milk, 

 subsequently, to be slipped out of them. These cakes of 

 frozen milk can be packed in large numbers in a car for 

 shipment. When milk is frozen under ordinary circum- 

 stances there is more or less of a separation between the 

 water and the solid parts of the milk, so that a cake of 

 frozen milk is not a uniform product throughout. This is 

 in a measure avoided by some of the methods of freezing 

 which have been devised. The details of these methods, 

 however, cannot be given here. The general result is that 

 the milk may be frozen without materially changing its phys- 

 ical nature, and when subsequently thawed out the product 

 cannot be distinguished from fresh milk. 



This method of distributing milk has been attempted only 

 in very recent years, too recently to determine whether it is 

 practical and likely to extend. It has been already adopted in 

 quite a number of cities of Northern Europe, appears to 

 be becoming popular, and is extending with some rapidity. 

 The manifest advantages of such a method, particularly in 

 warm weather, when milk is liable to be ruined by bacteria 

 before reaching the consumers, makes the plan a very 

 promising one, and it is by no means impossible that this 

 method of furnishing large communities with milk from a 

 distance may be adopted more and more widely. It may, 

 perhaps, in the end become the most popular method of 

 handling this dairy product. From the standpoint of the 

 bacteriologist it is almost an ideal method, for it furnishes a 

 means of placing in the hands of the consumer milk that con- 



