DISTRIBUTION OF MILK 83 



cities, requires the use of such a system. (3) The third 

 system is that in which the milk is heated in a vat and held 

 the required time. After being pasteurized and cooled, 

 it passes to a tank supplying the bottler. A fourth system, 

 pasteurization in the final container, is generally considered 

 too expensive a process for present market demands, al- 

 though it has been shown to be the most desirable method 

 on account of its effectiveness, since no contamination is 

 possible after pasteurization. 



In the larger city plants there are usually several bot- 

 tling machines into which cases of empty bottles are fed 

 at one end and the cases of filled and capped bottles re- 

 moved at the other end. The cases of bottles are then 

 stacked up in the refrigerator ready to be taken out for 

 delivery the following morning. So efficient are some of 

 these plants that a given quart of milk passes from receiv- 

 ing room to refrigerator in something like forty minutes, 

 even with the use of the holding system. 



In the country bottling plants, the process is similar 

 to the above, except that the filled cases are stacked up 

 and thoroughly iced in a refrigerator freight car ready for 

 shipment to the city in time to arrive there by early morn- 

 ing, when delivery-men begin to load their wagons. 



Keeping check on several hundred delivery-men is an- 

 other problem in a large company, since the method must 

 be such as to protect the company's interests as well as to 

 insure proper treatment of the consumer and to keep the 

 good will of the driver. Still another problem which any 

 large concern must meet is that of getting its bottles re- 

 turned, for a lost bottle, costing four or five cents, means 

 the profit on ten to twenty quarts of milk at least. Then 

 there is also the question of keeping up collections on hun- 

 dreds of small accounts with consumers and on the larger 



