36 THE MODERN MILK PROBLEM 



family kitchen was the milk-house where cans were 

 washed. He drove into the nearby town and with a 

 dipper ladled out his product into whatever pans or 

 pitchers were presented to receive it. There were sani- 

 tary objections to these methods, but few or no sani- 

 tarians to point them out. 



The consumer found no serious fault with any milk- 

 man but the one who eked out his supply by means 

 of the pump. 



Even to-day the old-style milkman survives, and 

 many small towns and some large ones receive their 

 supplies in some such manner as the above. In fact, 

 he has by no means disappeared, but has simply be- 

 come absorbed in the modern milk mechanism. 



The Modern Milk Mechanism 



With the growth of towns and the reaching-out into 

 the country for milk supplies from comparatively dis- 

 tant and unknown sources, the old evils were exag- 

 gerated and new ones added. Whatever check existed 

 in the knowledge of the consumer of his source of supply 

 disappeared. The element of time, with the danger 

 of stale or decomposed milk, became important. The 

 product passed through the hands of a new class of 

 men, the dealers or middlemen, who perhaps scarcely 

 ever see a dairy farm. The railroad was called into 

 requisition, introducing a new difficulty. Quantities 

 of milk were mixed for shipment by wholesalers, thus 

 making possible the infection of large supplies by a 

 few quarts. The city milk plant, with its frequent 

 lack of sanitation, came into existence. And now, at 

 the present time, the old-fashioned methods of milk 



