No. 4.] MILK SUPPLY OF CITIES. 49 



eastern end of the State is the " greater Boston," with three- 

 quarters of a million of people, situated upon the sea-board, 

 so that their milk supply can eome from only three direc- 

 tions. A circuit of towns and cities with a population of 

 149,000 encompasses the " greater Boston." Hence we rind 

 800,000 people thickly settled in a comparatively small 

 area. The force of this will be realized more from the fad 

 that the centre of the State, as regards population, is within 

 half a dozen miles of the shores of Massachusetts Bay. 



Aside from the "greater Boston," Massachusetts has 32 

 cities and towns of over 10,000 population. These aggre- 

 gate nearly 1,000,000 people. Counting the " greater Bos- 

 ton " as one, 33 cities and towns of over 10,000 population 

 have 1,716,424 people. Nineteen towns of the State have 

 over 7,000 population and less than 10,000, and aggre- 

 gate 157,649 inhabitants. Adding this to the above, we 

 find that 52 cities and towns of 7,000 population and above 

 have 1,874,000 persons, or, in round figures, If millions. 

 This is 75 per cent of the whole population. Most of 

 these people are so situated that they must receive daily 

 calls from a milkman, who has bought his milk at some 

 railroad station or driven several miles from the farm to 

 distribute it. 



This is a conservative basis for any calculation, because 

 many people in towns of less than 7,000 population cannot 

 depend entirely upon home resources for their milk supply. 



The amount and distribution of the city population of the 

 State is illustrated by the accompanying map, the figure 

 upon the location of the different cities and large towns 

 indicating the number of thousand of population of each 

 place. 



Milk Consumption. 



If 1,870,000 people use each half a pint of milk daily 

 (and that is a moderate estimate), the daily consumption is 

 467,500 quarts; and if the milk nets the tanner i'.\ cents ;i 

 quart, the business aggregates $11,687 per day, or annually 

 $4,265,755. If consumers pay an average of 7 cents per 

 quart for milk, they pay $32,725 per day, or $12,000,000 

 per year. 



