THE SURVEY 495 



county very generally upon the neighborhood scale, with small 

 creameries and skimming stations scattered through the open 

 country. However, at each of the twelve civic centers is a 

 creamery or condensery run on a scale exceeding that of the 

 open country factory. These milk zones, while following the 

 general lines of the trading zone, are naturally much smaller. 

 Only a little neutral territory exists, and this is due to seasonal 

 shifting. 



A rapid concentration of the milk industry into these village 

 factories, condenseries, and shipping plants is at present a 

 marked tendency. A few years may bring into this county 

 the auto-truck milk gatherer for each of the large village fac- 

 tories an agency already used in some parts of Wisconsin. 

 These milk institutions at the civic centers, in cases operated 

 and largely owned by outside companies, are industrial plants 

 of a character especially blending the interest of the villager 

 with that of the farmer. Not only the few main roads leading 

 into the center become of critical interest, but every road in the 

 possible milk zone takes on a new social value an interest which 

 is likely to overshadow the local road district interest or even 

 the township road interest. 



Village Church Zones. In the open country are many small 

 churches of the neighborhood and race settlement type. Every 

 hamlet has at least one church. Nevertheless the village churches 

 are fairly democratic, and are attended by farm families going 

 distances of five and six miles. It seems to be the policy of 

 the Roman Catholic church in this county to locate its churches 

 in the villages and cities, a fact which makes several of the 

 village church zones of considerable size, almost equal to the 

 respective trading zones. 



There are a few abandoned open country churches along the 

 roadsides; but the neighborhood country churches are usually 

 in more or less active operation. In some of the religious bodies 

 it is the prevailing practice for the village minister to serve 

 also one or two open-country charges, a custom which forms 

 one more link between village and country in the same general 

 trade zone. 



At certain of the incomplete civic centers, with small pop- 

 ulation and only partial trading facilities, there is a single 



