14 
BULLETIN 973, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE. 
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operated by hand levers are consistently higher than with the rotary 
and single-row types of machines for all plants of this group. The 
costs with the large automatic machine are less than with the hand- 
lever machine after about 3,000 bottles are reached. 
Owing to the high cost of labor, the hand-capping method is not 
economical for plants bottling more than 1,000 bottles daily. From 
a sanitary standpoint also this method is undesirable. According to 
the data obtained there was very little choice as regards cost of 
operation between the rotary and single-row types of machine. The 
average purchase price of the machines of these two types is prac- 
tically the same, and the labor cost at the particular plants studied 
was only slightly 
•/^i 1 1 1 1 r— i r— — i , , 1 greater with the sin- 
gle-row type. On 
account of the great 
variation in efficiency 
of labor and of plant 
management, and 
because these figures 
are based on only a 
relatively small num- 
ber of plants, it would 
not be possible to say 
that one of these two 
types is more eco- 
nomical than the 
other. 
If it should be as- 
sumed that at these 
plants two machines 
of the rotary and sin- 
gle-row types were 
used instead of one, 
and that the bottles 
Fig. 11.— Comparative costs for labor and for interest and depreciation filled per man-hour 
on equipment for four months of bottling milk for various-sized plants. ^^^ Vi __._„- 00 
computed from labor costs and the average number of machines of weie Lilt? bdilie ats 
various types used at 45 plants bottling 10,000 bottles or more daily. o"k nV p tVi pqp tvnPS 
Figures in parenthesis indicate average number of machines in use at auKJ \ ^> 77, , J ^ 
each plant. The relatively higher costs with the single-row and would still be more 
rotarv machines are due in part to the fact that in many plants some ,^ rt _ _ • _ _i ±\. _ _ +-L. _ 
of the machines were not in constant use. economical Ulan Uie 
machine with the 
hand levers for all plants in this group, while the costs with the 
large automatic machines would fall below those with the other two 
types when about 4,500 bottles are reached. 
Figure 11 is based on the data in Table 4 obtained from 45 plants 
bottling more than 10,000 bottles daily. At these plants the average 
number of machines was 1.6, 2.7, 4.7, and 1.8, for the methods 1 to 4, 
respectively, and an allowance for interest and depreciation of 20 per 
cent a year is made on these numbers of machines for each method. 
The same values for the machines were assumed as before. Owing to 
the comparatively large number of machines that were used at the 
plants using single-row and rotary machines the costs with these 
machines are higher than with the other two methods, because of the 
larger amount that must be charged for interest and depreciation. 
It will be noted that at these plants the costs with the rotary and 
/O,000 /2,000 /4,000 /&J?0O /S.000 20,000 
