THE MILK QUESTION. 49 



way. We pay the same for transportation to the railway 

 company as if the milk was shipped in cans, because the 

 same number of quarts occupies no more room packed in 

 that way than in cans ; in fiict, less room, because the boxes 

 can be piled as high as a man's head inside of the car, 

 whereas, if shipped in the forty-quart cans, which is the form 

 in which milk comes to New York ordinarily, of course the 

 cans cannot be piled at all : each can occupies its own space 

 on the floor. The bottles of milk, are sold with the seals un- 

 broken to the families, and of course they are sure that what 

 the}^ get is as good as w^e can possibly procure among the 

 farmers in Orange County. 



Mr. Taft. Those are sold for ten cents a bottle ? 



Mr. Weld. Those are sold for ten cents a bottle. When 

 we were especially anxious to introduce the milk, and had a 

 great abundance, we sold it for eight cents a quart. The 

 ordinary price in New York is eight cents. It falls a cent a 

 quart, and sometimes two cents, in summer, for a poor qual- 

 ity of milk, and it goes up occasionally for dipped milk, 

 that is, milk that is served with a dipper, to ten cents in 

 times of great scarcity. We pay a cent per quart to the rail- 

 road company for transportation. 



A portion of the milk which we receive from the farmers 

 is set for cream. That cream retails at forty cents a quart. 

 Cream of very nearly as good quality can be bought at whole- 

 sale in New Y^ork at twenty cents, but as we sell it, it is put 

 up in pint bottles, and sold in the same way as the milk, and 

 is delivered in that way. 



The advantages of the bottle system are very plain. If 

 milk is delivered, as it is in New York, from forty or sixty 

 or eighty quart cans, Avhich are sometimes used, and dipped, 

 in fine weather, with a few inches of snow^ on the ground, 

 the milk is delivered in very good condition ; but on a rainy 

 day, with w-ater dripping from the driver's hands and 

 clothes, or on a dusty day, w^hen all sorts of dust, and espe- 

 cially the dust of horse-dung, — which is the principal dust 

 that we have in New York, — is flying, the milk is not in 

 good condition, will not keep as well, and there is abundant 

 evidence in the flavor, to anybody who knows what good 

 milk is, that dipped milk is not and cannot be as good. 



