DISTRIBUTION OF MILK 67 



great duplication of apparatus and labor at many points. 

 At some seasons, this apparatus and labor would be idle; 

 at others it would be over-burdened; and that in consider- 

 ing the entire volume of business, it is far more econom- 

 ical to gather the milk at the central city plant in the 

 required amounts and prepare it for market as a whole 

 for a day's supply, instead of attempting to accumulate 

 or prepare from many various sections." 



In many sections there is a strong movement for the 

 ownership of these plants by the producers themselves, 

 so as to make them more independent of the city dealers. 

 This is being urged in the Boston district 1 and in the New 

 York district, where some country milk plants are now 

 owned and operated by producers and where an elaborate 

 plan is under way for the ownership of a considerable 

 number of them. On the Pacific coast the dairymen are 

 in numerous instances erecting so-called utility plants, 

 which are really country plants equipped to care for the 

 surplus in whatever way necessary when not all the milk 

 is needed in the city. The cooperative ownership and 

 operation of country plants will be further considered in 

 Chapter V. 



In many instances considerable quantities of milk are 

 collected for the city supply by country creameries, cheese 

 factories, and condenseries, which are so equipped as to 

 be able to prepare milk for city use and whose contracts 

 are such that milk can be diverted to the city as occasion 

 demands and at other times worked up into one of the 

 numerous milk products. At the outer edge of the milk 

 zone of practically every large city may be found such 

 establishments. One hindrance to such arrangements 

 as this, however, is the fact that in many cities the board 



1 New England Dairyman, Aug., 1917, p. I. 



